Master of Wood, Water and Hill
by Karmic Acumen
Summary: Bilbo Baggins wondered what Gandalf was thinking. Oh well, Bag End would sort him out. His house did NOT approve of vandalism, thank you very much. That rune carved into his door learned it personally. Besides, it served the wizard right for not heeding the rumors about Bilbo and the Old Forest.
1. The Shire-1: Bag End

**A/N: **Well, it happened again. Plot bunnies overcame me. I watched the two Hobbit movies recently and it reminded me of when I read the book, years ago. And I decided to try out an idea for it.

There will be at least one song / tune played in every chapter of this story. I will be mentioning the title and artist (or YouTube username) for them, in the pre-chapter author notes. I know people rarely read them, but I'll do it anyway. Most of them actually provide me with inspiration to write the scenes where they come in.

And they ARE relevant, given Bilbo's main occupation in this AU of mine.

So here it is: My Silent Cry by blacksheep806

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><p><strong>Master of Wood, Water and Hill<strong>

**:-. .-:**

**The Shire – 1: Bag End**

"**-. .-"**

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat. No, it was a hobbit-hole, and that meant comfort.

Although, to be fair, when it came to Bag End, "comfort" wasn't exactly the best word to describe it. Or, rather, the word was not _enough_ to comprise what Bag End was.

Located at the end of Bagshot Row in Hobbiton, right in the center of the land where Hobbits lived, the smial had been built for Belladonna Took by her husband Bungo Baggins. It was the most luxurious hobbit-hole in the Shire even before the Fell Winter, and retained that title in the years that came after those horrible months of famine, wolves and Orc attacks. All the way to the present day, it was the largest, most homely, most _respectable_ hobbit-hole in the entire Shire.

As far as the rest of the Hobbit population knew that is.

Not that it wasn't _true_. Bilbo Baggins could boast about that much. He wasn't one to gloat, but he did passively relish in it. He did ever so enjoy the mornings spent on the bench outside, next to the waist-tall front gate. Bag End really was the best smial ever, comfortable and with damn near countless different rooms. But it had stopped being _just_ a hobbit-hole about two years after he led his father on his final journey. Then again, that wasn't exactly accurate either. The actual transformation of Bag End probably started a year or so before the first odd things cropped up. No doubt around the time when he began to sing the songs taught to him by his adoptive mother, and play the instruments made by his adoptive father.

_"Heed you the world, boy, as song goes a-rumble / Enough heart poured in sends the ground a-tumble."_

Bilbo smiled at the memory of the playful but almost always present rhymes. He smiled wider when he recalled all the occasions when he had been called to entertain his fellow Hobbits at various festivals and birthday parties.

And his _own_ parties. Ah, the stuff of legends.

Bilbo the Minstrel, they called him. Bilbo the Bard. Bilbo the Great Musician. Bilbo the Great Storyteller. The Silver Tongue.

The Nimble Hand.

Bilbo always had to suppress a bout of hysterical laughter at that one. Hobbits' ability for accidental innuendo was astonishing.

His personal favorite was The Soul of the Party, but there was no accounting for taste he supposed.

In all honesty, Mad Baggins amused him more, though not as much as the last two visits that Lobelia Sackville-Baggins and her husband Otho dared to make before they finally stopped coming, four years ago. No doubt they'd thought he'd deliberately strung the house full of traps and pranks in anticipation of their arrival. They'd made sure to complain and gossip about it to anyone who could hear, for months after the fact.

Maybe he _would_ have done it under different circumstances. They hadn't let him grieve for his father for even a year before they descended upon him like pretentious bowtruckles, a month before his 34th birthday. And they kept hounding him for years and years until his own home got fed up with them.

And that was the truth of the matter: _Bag End simply didn't like them_. And Bilbo didn't really have the heart to hold it against his home when a wall cupboard door randomly popped open (_Are you alright, cousin? You hit your head rather badly there…)_ or when lock-less doors refused to open when Lobelia began to skulk around the place. And the way the clothes tree shifted in place and tripped Lobelia, thus causing the silverware she'd hidden in her bodice (his _mother's_ _courting gift!_) to spill all over the hallway floor…

Bilbo had briefly considered lifting her by the back of her dress and throwing her out, but he had an image to uphold. And uphold it he did.

_He_ was Master of Bag End.

No one else.

Bilbo looked up. The sky, nearly cloudless, was an incredible shade of blue. He drew in a deep breath full of Old Toby's wonderful scent, then puffed, his pipe releasing a perfect smoke ring that glided away, growing wider and thinner as it did.

The oddities of Bag End had started out innocently enough. Bilbo didn't realize anything was out of the ordinary until too many minor things piled up. Like how the door hinges stopped needing oil in order to swing open or closed without creaking. The windows stopped needing cleaning. A room's air freshened up in less than an hour even if just the smallest window was left slightly ajar. And not only that, but dust cleared itself from the furniture by itself when he aired a room.

Then the strangeness became more obvious. He'd stumble into the kitchen seeking an early tea in the morning and find the cupboard door already open. The jars of honey would be closer to the front of the shelves when he went for them, easily within reach when he wanted to fix himself a quick second breakfast. Old scratches started to fade from the walls. The grime that always darkened even the best wood over time slowly disappeared, leaving everything from the mantelpiece to the frame of the front door looking as good as new, then better than even _that_. Eventually, the same started to happen to the furniture.

And after another couple of years of him switching between his Home and his Home Away From Home (and _boy_, did the bigger prudes of Hobbiton _ever_ criticize Mad Baggins for repeatedly venturing into the Old Forest), weirdness started to get really blatant, though not overbearing. And usually not when there were guests present.

Yet eventually Bag End started to become restless, and Blbo Baggins knew it was time to go. There were no more songs to learn in the Shire, and his own compositions became staggered, rarer. The lack of inspiration and self-fulfillment set in, making him feel antsy and constricted. Stir-crazy. Deprived. His home reflected his state of heart in many ways, and he knew he needed a change.

So one day, in the spring of his 40th year, he packed up, locked the doors on his house and left. Bag End fell into slumber behind him. Bilbo took the Old Forest road as usual. It would make his fellow hobbits think he'd only gone on one of his usual haunts, even though, for the first time, he planned to go further.

It was his first adventure, and also the first and last time when the Sackville-Bagginses tried to move into his home while he was away – Bag end did NOT like them skulking about, unlike the kindly (but thankfully oblivious) elderly gardener Hobson Gamgee. His home positively adored him for how faithfully he tended to the garden.

But it was also not the last of Bilbo Baggins' adventures. He went on several over the years, each of which began and ended at the home of his new parents, deep within the Ancient Wood.

Bilbo snorted and shook his head, then produced three smoke rings in quick succession. The nature of their relationship had never been stated, but it was clear regardless. Though it would have seemed ridiculous to his fellow Shire-folk. After all, while he may not have been an adult when he first met those who would essentially adopt him into their own family, Bilbo _had_ been an adult when his birth father Bungo Baggins finally laid to rest.

It meant spending days that felt like years deep within the gloomy Old Forest, among trees that moved and whispered in the night.

It meant baring his soul and body to the Fëa and Hröa of the land.

It went against the norm for Hobbits.

It was _perfect_.

Bilbo leaned back on the bench and closed his eyes, basking in the sunlight. He would have relaxed the rest of the way, but a hum that only he could feel washed through the flower hedge decorating the slope behind him. He wasn't expecting guests (and Hobbits always knew to send advanced word) but someone was approaching. _Purposely_.

Huh. Well, all were welcome in Bag End until they proved they deserved otherwise.

The plants in the flower garden meandered in spite of the lack of a strong enough breeze, and all the petals became slightly more radiant than before. His home practically preened in anticipation of someone's arrival. Bag End had a sense for these things, which stretched some distance beyond his fences. And what Bag End knew, Bilbo knew so long as he was within the bounds of his property.

That's why he knew exactly how his smoke ring expanded and floated, and how it turned into a butterfly when someone – one of the Big Folk – walked along the path leading up to his gate. The butterfly fluttered its way back to him, bursting into smoke again as soon as it landed on his nose. The noise was like the tinkling of bells heard through the spray of a waterfall.

Leaning back, still with his eyes shut, Bilbo drew a circle through the air with the mouthpiece of his 10-inch-long pipe. The smoke obligingly formed itself into a ring again and floated away once more.

Yes. In Bag End _he_ was _Master_.

With a hum of contentment, Bilbo Baggins opened his eyes and met the searching blue ones of the man standing beyond the fence. It took a single moment of observation – grey robes, long grey beard, gnarled staff he pretended to lean on like a walking stick even though he wasn't crippled in the least – to identify his visitor. Behind him, Bag End settled into a deep but still aware state of inertia that would hopefully avoid tickling the wizard's mystical senses.

Good. Discretion was an appropriate first response.

Bilbo had spent years compiling ballads and stories, and reading histories in various languages. Not recognizing Gandalf the Grey would have been asinine. Especially since the old wizard had been a personal acquaintance of his, or rather his mother, so many decades before.

And now, here the old wizard was, gazing down at him from beneath the brim of his tall, pointed grey hat. Obviously waiting to be verbally acknowledged. Bilbo looked for signs of surprise at his trick with the smoke. Or any reaction on Gandalf's part to seeing his eyes colored a vivid green (like the emerald leaves of water lilies, his adoptive mother had told him) instead of the original brown.

He found not even the slightest hint of a reaction.

Damn inscrutable wizards. Bilbo was sure that even Maiar shouldn't be able to put on such a perfect mask. Then again, maybe it was no longer a mask. Or maybe it never was.

Well, nothing to it he supposd. "Good morning."

"What do you mean?" Oh, here we go. "Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not? Or is it that you feel good this morning, or that it is a morning to be good _on_?"

Bilbo tilted his head and squinted at the old man. "All of them at once I suppose." He absently gnawed on the mouthpiece of his pipe, knowing it would be good as new in less than an hour, no matter how deeply he sunk his teeth into it. It was one of several gifts his adoptive father had given him. "May I help you?"

"That remains to be seen," the wizard answered. Bilbo almost snorted. The man was deliberately trying to egg him on by acting all dramatic. "I'm looking for someone to share in an _adventure_."

"An adventure?" Bilbo finally gave into the impulse and snorted in amusement. "Troublesome things, adventures. They sneak up on you and lead you all over the place. Make you late for dinner. And supper, mustn't forget supper."

Gandalf hummed, then resumed his act of peering down at him. "And how would you like to be that one?"

Bilbo affected an exaggerated look of surprise on his face. "Me?" He lifted his eyebrows as far as they could go. "And how could you possibly assume I'd be open to such a thing? Especially when the proposition was made by someone who has still not introduced himself?"

"Ah, an excellent point. How very rude of me!" The wizard's voice was only slightly gravelly, but clearly amused. "Allow me, then, to introduce myself. I am Gandalf. Gandalf the Grey."

"That you are," Bilbo nodded, lifting himself to his feet and removing the pipe from his mouth. He felt the slight pressure of his pouch of Longbottom leaf in his waistcoat's pocket, but decided he didn't yet need a refill. "Gandalf, the wandering wizard who made such _excellent_ fireworks. Old Took use to have them on Mid-summer's Eve. Are you still in business?"

"And where else would I be?"

"Who knows? On an adventure? Then again, I suppose you're only starting one now." Bilbo walked over to his mailbox. "I'd ask what business a wizard would want with a respectable gentelhobbit like myself. After all, my mother always said _not to meddle in the affairs of wizards_, for they are subtle and quick to anger." Leafing through his letters with one hand – mostly invitations to parties and tea – he turned to look up at the old man again. "I always did find it odd, that piece of advice. She shouldn't have been one to talk, given how often she actually left on journeys with you. And now, here you are at my gate. I suppose 'children shouldn't pay for the sins of their parents' isn't a creed wizards live by?"

"Sins?" Gandalf sounded positively shocked and slightly aggravated. "I would hardly call your mother's travels _sins_, young man. To think I would live to see the day when Belladonna Took's son held the way she chose to live her life against her, and met the idea of an adventure as something to be feared and mistrusted!"

"I hold nothing against her." Bilbo pointed the spiked end of his pipe at the old visitor. "And I don't mistrust the idea of an adventure. I just mistrust _you_."

Silence.

Well, not exactly. There was the wonderful sound of a woodpecker coming from Hobson Gamgee's apple tree down the road.

Gandalf frowned and leaned his head forward. The shadow that fell over his face would have made Bilbo wary if he was the same person of 10 years ago. "Now now, my dear boy, I assure you I bear absolutely no ill intentions towards you. Why, I have no idea why you would even think such a thing!" The wizard sounded honest and serious about that. "You've changed, Bilbo Baggins, and I'm not sure if it was entirely for the better."

Bilbo's cheer disappeared, though his expression stayed as wryly amused as before. "Then it's a good thing my good mood is unassailable by the opinions of others. If it were not, some of the things people have been saying about me would have stung."

Gandalf took that in stride. "Now why would you say that? I've only heard your kin saying good things of you. That you've become quite the accomplished musician and entertainer?" Bilbo said nothing. "Though I do believe I heard a few mutterings about a 'Mad Baggins' and his tendency to occasionally disappear into the Old Forest for anything from days to weeks at a time."

"Mutterings is a good word," Bilbo easily agreed. "What will they think of next?"

"What indeed."

Bilbo wondered if Gandalf was really playing dumb about the several times he disappeared for over four or six months, or if he really didn't know about them yet. "Well, it was nice meeting you!" He tucked his letters under the arm and turned to walk up the path leading to his front door. "Do feel free to drop by for tea any time this week!" The hobbit looked back over his shoulder. "I won't ask to be warned in advance, seeing as how wizards only ever arrive precisely when they mean to. Never late, never early."

"I will definitely take up that invitation!"

"Splendid!" Bilbo opened his door. "Well, good morning!" And got into the house, shutting the perfectly round door behind him. He had to take a breath and slowly release it, to calm his nerves. In any other situation he might have actually lunged at the opportunity to go on an adventure with others, but that encounter had been loaded with an indescribable but heavy sense of _doom_.

Once he regained his composure, he moved further in, emptying his pipe in the ashtray he'd placed next to the clothes tree for that exact purpose. And all the while, he was fully aware of the presence that stepped through his gate and strode all the way to the door.

Oh well. He supposed it was too much to hope for at least _some_ sort of reprieve before he'd have to invite the old man insi-

He reacted _just_ in time.

Bag End nearly hurled the door open into Gandalf's face (and yes, the door to Bag End _could_ swing open both ways), but Bilbo clamped down his will and preempted the reaction. Although he could understand the response. What was Gandalf playing at, using that staff of his to carve lines into his door?

Bilbo leaned against the wall and took deep, steady breaths, dividing his attention between keeping Bag End passive and persuading _himself_ that no, he really didn't agree with his home that he should give Greybeard the Meddlesome a face-full of wooden boards.

He was thankful when the wizard stopped carving after a single symbol.

Bilbo stayed there, inside the entrance hallway, for ten minutes, focused on the feeling of the uninvited visitor as he disappeared into the distance at a steady trot. Once he was sure the old man was far away from his smial, the hobbit strode back to the door and pulled it inward, looking down, straight at the spot where an all-new, blue, _shimmering_ symbol lay. _Shimmering_.

It _shimmered!_

A sound almost reminiscent of a growl came out of Bilbo's throat. And it wasn't _all_ owed to the meaning of that rune. _'Burglar wants a good job, plenty of excitement and reasonable reward.'_

No, the annoyance came from elsewhere: the wizard had done _**magic on his house**__!_

Bilbo Baggins crossed his arms and pointedly _glared_ at the offending etching.

The blue shimmer burst away from the door like sand in the wind, leaving only scratches that were already mending.

As _if_ Bag End would suffer the touch of craft belonging to _anyone_ other than its Master.

Bilbo reentered his home and closed the door behind him. In about an hour, there would be no sign that anything had ever been sculpted into the door to Bag End, or that anything had ever affected it at all, time included. If Gandalf had a way to know that his little spell had been countered, he was probably on his way back already. If not, then whatever he had planned that involved directions written in _dwarven_ had been derailed, likely to hilarious consequences.

Good, Bilbo thought vindictively. He was always up for a good laugh.

"-. .-"

The follow-up to that fateful meeting came, as Bilbo half-expected, just the next day in the afternoon.

Which meant he only had half a day to himself left, so he had to make the best of it.

The clock on the wall opposite his bed told him he slept in until past the time when breakfast was usually served. But he woke up in a good mood, something that always happened after he dreamt of being one with the land. Though they weren't actual dreams, according to his living parents. And they happened more and more frequently each year. Ever since his first venture into the Old Forest, the nightly occurrences had slowly gone from once or twice a year to once every fortnight. It seemed to correlate with Bag End becoming more and more alive, though Bilbo knew his home was really as much an independent existence as it was an extension of him. The part of himself that truly, constantly, communed with nature.

Last night he could swear he connected with the spirit of his birth father for a while. He treasured those moments, even though the reason they could even happen always brought him as much sadness as it did happiness. But soon enough he was a tree, whispering along with his ancient brothers in the forest. He was the grass that swayed in the wind. He was the dew that glittered as the breeze pushed the grass blades to and fro. He was the Brandywine river, flowing unimpeded down his millennia-old bed.

And then he was the network of beaten paths crisscrossing from one edge of the Shire to another, from the Brandywine Bridge to Little Delving, and from Long Cleeve to Cottonbottom. That had been right before he awoke, and let him know of the recent arrivals

Travelers other than Gandalf walked the Shire. And they weren't Hobbits from Breeland. In fact, they didn't feel like hobbits at all.

That short-lived dwarven rune that Gandalf had etched into his door made perfect sense now. Then again, it had made perfect sense the previous day as well.

In-between meals, Bilbo spent some time playing the fiddle in his back yard. It wasn't his preferred instrument, but he could play pretty much all of them, as he'd long ago decided to master them all. He still had a way to go with some of the bigger ones, and he knew there were some he'd never gotten a hold of, but for most it came as easily as breathing now.

He probably wouldn't get to play a fiddle for quite a while after the week was out. They didn't exactly last long on the road, through shifting weather. Well, some did, but he didn't own one sturdy enough. And he knew he couldn't take too many of his instruments along on whatever adventure he was going to embark on, no matter how much he pretended he wasn't interested.

After all, his collection filled an entire room.

And yes, he already was pretty sure he would end up going on this adventure that Gandalf came to hound him about. Even if he _was_ first going to put the wizard through the wringer for the way he tried to go about it.

Hobson had already been tending to the back garden for a while when noon came, and Bilbo played the tunes he knew the man enjoyed the most. Then he played the ones preferred by his wife Lily, knowing that the woman was always baking something at this time of day and had her kitchen window wide open. The window that ever so conveniently faced the hill Bag End was built into.

Bilbo never really tired of singing or playing, but he eventually set his fiddle aside and went to help with the only flowers he kept in the back, along the fence surrounding the vegetable pasture: Tiger Lilies. He had most of them along the path leading from the front gate to the door, but these were the original ones, the ones he wanted to keep safe more than he wanted to put on display. His mother had procured a pair of bulbs in her last adventure and Bilbo had done his best to multiply them and make sure he always got them through the year. It wasn't too hard, for the most part, since they were perennial plants and winters weren't too bad in the Shire.

Usually. Things like the Fell Winter still happened sometimes.

Hobson protested, as usual, when Bilbo sunk his knees into the soft earth next to his gardener. Honestly, Bilbo helped at least once a week, so Hobson should have given up by now. But he was a stout hobbit, bless his soul, even if he did only protest more due to habit than actual hope Bilbo would listen. Respectable gentlehobbits simply shouldn't do yard work, he kept insisting. It just wasn't done!

Bilbo, also as usual, pat him on the shoulder and helped anyway, then invited him inside to get cleaned up and have tea, which Hobson himself prepared while Bilbo got a change of clothes. He was feeling particularly "natural" today, so he went for deep green. It would contrast well with his a dark red waistcoat and the white shirt beneath it.

The waistcoat's embroidered pattern didn't hurt the image in the least either: interlocking leaves sewed in the same green as the trousers.

If he was going to have visitors, he would look the part of a good host, and when his guests learned how inappropriately Gandalf had set everything up, they would, with some luck, tear into him. Bilbo would probably not even have to ask, or put any effort into doing it himself by the end of the day.

Righteous vindication was so much better to witness than to feel. Because the latter always meant there was a slight in there somewhere to feel righteously vindicated over.

It was while he and Hobson were sitting in armchairs around a small table, nearly done with their tea, that the knock on the door came. Bilbo swiftly (and as gracefully as an elf, he internally boasted) left the chair and went to answer the door.

And much to his surprise, Hobson's young son Hamfast was on Bilbo's doorstep. Not a meddling wizard or a surly dwarf. Just a hobbit still in his tweens.

And he was bent over panting.

His mother had sent him to tell him there was a dwarf skulking about, the lad said after he caught his breath. Looking for someone that was supposed to to go on a journey with him and some of his kin. Bilbo could almost imagine Lily adding "or some such nonsense" to the end of that sentence. Well, the dwarf had beat a hasty retreat when he realized how silly he probably looked, coming to ask after someone without being able to offer any information on who he was searching for. He was supposedly standing at the crossroad now, where Bagshot Row and Bywater Road interlocked. Probably waiting for someone to meet up with him, kin or the wizard himself.

Well, misery did love company.

Bilbo began to feel a sinking suspicion coming in. Had Gandalf not given them any directions at all? Or even a _name? _For Iluvatar's sake!

He thanked the boy for coming to relay his mother's message, but apparently there was more. Lily had told Hamfast to ask Bilbo if it was alright to send the dwarf up to Bag End, so he could sort him out. She would have sent him over without asking, but he seemed mighty large and surly, and she didn't want to cause him undue trouble, hence Hamfast playing messenger.

Sometimes he really was amazed by how thoughtful the Gamgees were.

Bilbo walked with the lad and his father to the front gate and saw them off, though not before he gave Hamfast a cupcake along with the affirmative answer.

That done, he hurried through Bag End and retrieved his fiddle, then made his way back to the bench Gandalf had found him on the previous day. Once there, he sat down on the plush cushion, closed his eyes and, once he adjusted his position so the wind would carry the sounds as far as possible, set the bow on the strings and began to play. He'd been composing a tune inspired by the shooting stars streaking across the sky above The Last Homely Home. He'd been making adjustments to it for a couple of years now, so he may as well try it out, knowing how much time was likely to pass before he laid hands on a fiddle again.

It was ten minutes later that heavy footfalls made themselves heard, though Bilbo (or rather Bag End) had been aware of the dwarf's approach for quite a bit longer than that. Bilbo kept playing until the dwarf stopped across the fence from him, then continued for another minute. Not just because it was an aria he wanted to go through all the way, but also to see if the dwarf would interrupt him to gain his attention or not.

Much to Bilbo's surprise, the dwarf didn't clear his throat or say anything. Bilbo did hear him shift on his feet a couple of times, but he said nothing until he stopped playing and set the fiddle and bow aside.

Well, Bilbo didn't look like much of a burglar, the hobbit supposed, so the dwarf probably thought he'd been sent over to ask for directions from someone who knew about whatever he was going on about.

Bilbo sympathized with him. Really.

There was more to the tune, but there were some harp sections before the fiddle had to resume, so the hobbit had to stop there. Besides, he doubted dwarves would take all that well to music that clearly felt so very Elvish. Even to the hobbit's own ears, the tune sounded out of place in the Shire.

When Bilbo finally opened his eyes, he was met with an odd sight. The dwarf was larger than he expected, and he was bald, with tattoos lining his scalp. Though his beard and mustache did extend to his cheeks and above his eyes, even circling the back of his head. He was heavily armored and had a thick, fur-lined tunic over the rest of his garb. And his boots were bulky and large, with metal shins and tips.

Making those observations had taken about a second. Basically the time he needed to set the fiddle aside. Bilbo decided to pull the dwarf out of his misery. "Good afternoon."

"Afternoon," was the answering grunt – exhausted of patience and tiredly resigned, Bilbo sensed. The dwarf was about to say something else, but the hobbit cut him off.

"Let me guess." Bilbo pushed up from the bench and took two steps, until he was standing face-to-face with him. The rising slope ensured they stood at the same height, even though the hobbit was a full head shorter. "You're looking for someone to share in an _adventure_." He said dryly. "You know, funny how these things go. Adventure would be a good word for what happened to me the other day." For dramatic emphasis, he began to slowly pace, his fingers tapping his chin and the other hand behind his back. "Here I was, smoking my pipe and minding my own business when an old friend of my mother's shows up at my gate expecting me to magically bear the same fondness for him even though I'd only actually met him a couple of times when I was a faunt. We exchanged words and you know what he did? He insulted me!"

The dwarf was staring at him with the eyes of one who was asking his gods what he'd done to deserve walking into that situation.

But Bilbo was on a roll. "Then, when despite his behavior I did the courteous thing and invited him for tea, he actually accepted as if there was no harm done! But you know something? That wasn't even the worst of it!" He whirled on his feet leaned over the gate, right into his personal space. It made the dwarf actually take a step back in surprise. "After I bid him goodbye and retired into my home, he had the _nerve_ to waltz in and vandalize my property!"

"That was indeed terribly rude of him."

Bilbo internally smirked in satisfaction. His 'greeting' had taken the surly dwarf aback to such an extent that he was automatically agreeing only because he had no idea what else to do. "And now!" Bilbo ranted. "Now…" He straightened and crossed his arms, gazing sternly at the dwarf. "Now, I'd say he has set you up for an awkward and frustrating first foray into an unfamiliar land, all for the sake of his sick amusement." Well, Bilbo didn't really feel that way about the wizard, but he had a performance to put on.

Some light of understanding finally dawned on the dwarf, who pulled himself together. "This friend of yours. Is he who I think it is?"

Well, he was blunt and gruff, but Bilbo supposed 'might I inquire as to the identity of your acquaintance' wasn't exactly how normal folk talked. "I find myself, at present, unable speak his name without broadcasting my utter annoyance towards the man, something that just isn't _done_ by respectable gentlehobbits like myself." Bilbo was putting on airs, he knew, but that was the whole point. And audience of one was still an audience after all. "But I'm sure we've come to the same conclusion. Tall, reedy-looking, wearing grey robes and a pointy hat. Pretends to lean on his walking stick despite not being crippled at all." Bilbo waved his hand through the air a few times. "Tends to send those he's traveling with looking for people without actually providing directions?"

The dwarf grunted in grudging assent. "Sounds about right."

Bilbo looked at him sympathetically. "He didn't even give you a name, did he?"

The dwarf winced.

Bilbo rubbed a hand over his face, and what he said next made the dwarf snort. "One of these days, someone will snap and strangle Gandalf with his own beard." The hobbit met the dwarf's eyes again. "You know what the worst part is? He not only failed to mention when he would drop by, but he also failed to mention he would be bringing company. So now I am in the uncomfortable position not having prepared any dinner in anticipation of your arrival, and that of whatever traveling companions you might have. I take great pride in my reputation as the perfect host, you see, and now has been tarnished!"

"Oh…" The large, solid dwarf looked well and truly thrown off his game. Whatever his game would have been. "Well, your idea of beard strangulation is more than appropriate then." He looked down the road, then him again. "I apologize for dropping in unannounced." Bilbo was truly surprised at that one. "I have a feeling my fellows will feel as you do once I meet up with them, which I think should be done sooner rather than later." He nodded at him. "Good afternoon, master hobbit."

"Now now!" Bilbo spoke in time to prevent the other from walking off. "I said I no longer qualified as the perfect host, but I'm certain I can still be a good one, in spite of the sabotage by Greybeard the Meddlesome." The dwarf snorted again, from definite amusement this once. "But that will require something from _you_. You can either tell me now when I can expect you and your fellows, _or_… " Bilbo stepped forward and pulled the waist-high gate open. "You can come in and allow me to serve you something quick while I start dinner in earnest. In spite of how awkward Gandalf made sure this situation would be."

The dwarf seemed torn between going on a righteous manhunt and accepting free food. Bilbo had honestly expected him to come in immediately. "Keep in mind that if you choose the former, you'll likely have to strangle Gandalf with his own beard without any backup." The dwarf couldn't quite smother his amusement. "That you are by yourself tells me you and whoever will embark on a journey with you have not been traveling together. That you bear a sizable travel backpack says you haven't checked in at an inn either. Which means that my home was supposed to be your meeting place, and _would_ have been if Gandalf hadn't botched things up so magnificently. Am I right?"

"... well, you're not oblivious, I'll give Gandalf that."

"Thank you for that delightfully backhanded compliment," Bilbo quipped. "Perhaps I might respond with one of my own? The remnants of your Mohawk are only _barely_ discernible among the tattoos covering your otherwise gleaming scalp."

The dwarf glowered, though Bilbo could tell there was barely any heat in it.

"Turnabout _is_ fair play, master dwarf!" The hobbit smiled and stepped back from the still open gate. "So. Introductions first?"

"I suppose so," the dwarf grumbled. Then he sketched a bow. "Dwalin, at your service."

Hobbits did not bow, but they did step aside and usher their guests in. "Bilbo Baggins, at yours and your family's."

Dwalin finally stepped through the gate, and the reaction that Bag End had upon receiving this unusual guest almost made Bilbo trip on air. There was no movement, nothing physically changed about the hobbit-hole. No doors opened, no windows moved, and the plants only swayed as much as the very faint wind dictated. But Bilbo and Bag End were essentially one being, and the hobbit was almost bowled over by the emotional surge.

Maybe there was no physical element _because_ the response was so intense?

Baffled, the hobbit quickly shut the gate and spun on his heel to stare at his visitor. As he turned, Dwalin managed to catch the tail ends of his astonishment, but the hobbit quickly looked away to stare at his smial instead.

For goodness' sake! Really?

"Erm… yes," Bilbo floundered, then gave himself a shake. "Well then. Follow me." Not meeting the dwarf's eyes, Bilbo strode past him as steadily as he could manage while still involved in an empathic confrontation with his house.

"Are you well, master hobbit?" Bilbo really couldn't tell what his tone was. "You looked a bit faint for a moment there."

Bilbo gave a nervous laugh. "Oh, it's nothing, just…" Okay, that was a blatant lie. Actually, Bag End was literally swooning, and cooing over how adorable (_adorable!_) the new creature that had passed its threshold was. It rather reminded Bilbo of the time when little Hamfast found a small, fluffy puppy ten years ago and refused to stop hugging it for half a day afterwards.

Bilbo had the sneaking feeling that supplying that information to his newest acquaintance would not go over very well. "My home never had such a positive reaction to anyone before." That was a safe enough translation right?

From where he followed, one step behind, Dwalin asked the predictable thing. "Your… _house…_ reacted well."

_Yes, master dwarf, it wants to cuddle you all the way into next year_. Because _that_ would be such a smart thing to say. Where in the world this reaction had come from, Bilbo had no idea. He just knew it wasn't him.

" … Your _home_… likes dwarves…"

Bilbo wasn't sure which part of that assessment the dwarf found harder to believe. That his home had a mind and feelings of its own, the _ability_ to like people… or that anyone would actually like dwarves right off the bat. If it was the latter he couldn't believe, it was immensely sad. What kind of life had he led that made him think that? "Well…" Hold up, since when was he so easily rattled? This would just not do! "To be truthful, Master Dwalin, I don't know about _dwarves_ exactly." He stopped short of his doorstep and turned on his heels to give him a one-eyed look. "It likes _you_ though." The door to Bag End swung open invitingly all on its own, and Bilbo grinned wolfishly. "See? It can't wait to welcome you in. Eru knows why!" Having regained his composure, Bilbo Baggins swept through the entrance and into his house.

He made a beeline for the small sitting room where he and Hobson had been having tea. It took a few seconds for everything to be gathered up on the tray. Then another thirty for him to return everything to the kitchen. In all that time, there was no indication that the dwarf had entered the house after him.

After sternly ordering Bag End to _calm the hell down_, Bilbo was finally able to actually divert some of his attention to knowing where everything and everyone was.

Huh.

Not too slowly but also not too hastily, he returned to the main hallway. Dwalin wasn't quite quick enough to straighten from where he was still outside, peering suspiciously around the door. Oh Valar, he must have thought… "Peace, master Dwalin." He hoped his smile was reassuring instead of amused at his guest's expense. "There is no one in Bag End but the two of us. For now anyway." Hoping it would quell some of the awkwardness, Bilbo paid him no more mind and crossed the hallway the rest of the way, to one of the many guest rooms the smial had, whose door swung open on its own like the main one had.

Bag End was accommodating and eager to assist like that, when there was no need for secrecy. And this time, Bilbo would hold nothing back.

Anyway, if he was going to have guests, he would need more chairs. Or maybe he should just get a bench or two into the dining room instead.

But that would come later. For now, he only took one of the better cushions he had and carried it back to the sitting room. Dwalin had finally dared to come inside, although he gave a start when the door closed shut behind him without prompting. After giving it one last wary glance (was he debating the benefits of leaving and waiting for backup before he braved the haunted house?), he hurried after the hobbit while trying to make it seem as though he wasn't hurrying at all. Bilbo watched it all through the reflections in the glass cabinets.

"Take a seat. I will whip something up for you as quickly as I can. Until then, feel free to partake from the fruit bowl."

Leaving the dwarf to his own devices, Bilbo hurried to the kitchen, thankful he'd gone to the market two days before. In less than five minutes, he'd whipped up four large cheese and ham sandwiches, with lettuce and tomato rings for extra flavor. He was about to take it to his guest but hesitated. Moving to the pantry, he pulled out a small keg of ale and then got the largest mug he could find, filling it to the brim.

Well, it would have to do as an appetizer if nothing else.

Nodding to himself, Bilbo scooped up the plate and mug of ale and quickly traversed the corridors back to the front sitting room. His eyebrows went up when he found the dwarf drumming his fingers against the tabletop, and the fruit bowl totally empty. There weren't even the tiniest apple scraps left.

Huh. The guy had to be hungry. Well, he _had_ been on the road for a while. "Here you are, master dwarf."

The man barely grunted before he dug in. Huh. No manners. If only Bag End would use that as a reason to stop silently fawning over him. Maybe then Bilbo would be able to concentrate properly.

No such luck. "Well then, I'll go prepare the actual dinner." Another grunt. Dwarves really could think of nothing else when they had food placed in front of them.

Bilbo was almost out the door when something occurred to him. "Master Dwalin." He turned to look at his guest, and was gratified to see him at least paying attention, even if he was still scarfing up the sandwiches with alarming speed. "Gandalf never told me how many would be coming."

Dwalin washed down his food with a generous helping of ale, then wiped the foam off his beard before answering. "Twelve besides me." He belched, and Bilbo had to force himself not to grimace. "Twelve dwarves and the wizard." He drank some more ale and gave it a speculative look. "This is good ale."

"Yes, thank you, glad you like it…" Bilbo mumbled. Thirteen. Thirteen dwarves! "Thirteen… Right. Right!" Abandoning his previous path, he walked back into the room and went straight for the desk under the window. He had most of his stationery in his study, but he always kept some parchment and an inkwell here as well, just in case. And some other areas in his home for that matter.

Not that he was going to use quill and ink. No, for this he would need a charcoal stick, and it was good that he had many of those on hand as well, for when the fancy struck him to sketch something. "Right… We'll need a large cauldron of stew. Pork would probably work best." His hand absently guided the charcoal across the paper as he muttered to himself. "Some sort of roast as well. There are still some rib strips in the basement stores, and I still have those plucked and cleaned turkeys. What else? Cheese of course, there should still be two whole rolls left and they should last if they're sliced properly. That means we're only lacking bread and oh I'm going to set Gandalf's beard on fire next time I meet him!"

"… umm… Master Baggins?"

"Yes?" Bilbo distractedly looked up at his guest, who'd stood up at some point.

"You've torn through the paper."

"What?" His attention finally snapped to the sheet of paper. "Oh." The sheet he'd driven his charcoal stick right though. "Oh! Huh. Imagine that." Well, it could still be salvaged. "I was done anyway."

"It must be quite the shopping list…" Bilbo wondered why the dwarf was looking at him like he was crazy.

With a shake of his head, Bilbo stood, grimly determined. "It's not a shopping list." He held up the sheet, which bore the rune Gandalf had so pretentiously carved into his door. "Old Meddly etched this into my door yesterday, but my home didn't like it so it got rid of it." Bilbo was still cross about that breach of privacy. "Master dwarf, please hang this on the front door while I open up the basement stores." He pushed the sheet into the bemused dwarf's hands before stalking off. "And don't worry about a hammer and nails! Just slap the paper on the outside of the door and Bag End will keep it there."

Bag End had somewhat calmed down after the initial cooing episode, so Bilbo could focus on actually preparing his home for the arrival of a dwarven company. As he disappeared down the corridor, he picked up the muffled sounds of Dwalin jumping in actual fright when the front door opened on its own again. And were those curses he heard? Really, an adventurer should be able to adapt faster than this! Though, clearly, the dwarf refused to take Bilbo's claims about his home at face value.

No matter. He would come to believe them by the end of the day. Either that, or he'd come to believe he had gone crazy.

"-. .-"

Evening had fallen, and clouds had gathered overhead. If Balin, son of Fundin, had been more like his brother, he would have started to mutter curses in Khuzdul hours ago, and with the impending rain his mood was not getting any better. But he was not Dwalin, and he also happened to be a former Dwarven Noble, a Lord, Head of his own House. So instead of bad language he dealt with his discomfort (though the word did not truly do his mood justice) in his own way: stoicism.

Mahal knew that few of the others that would go on the journey to Erebor had it in them to be level-headed and serene in the face of the oncoming storm.

He'd entered South Farthing via the southern road early in the afternoon, so he'd been certain he would find his destination easily enough. He'd followed Gandalf's directions to the letter. They had been few, but they had also been very specific. Take the right when you reach X crossroad and keep your eyes open for the door bearing the Burglar's mark.

He'd found what he considered to be the proper street, and he'd walked all the way to the end, but none of the strange, earth-dug dwellings bore the sign he was seeking. Confused, he thought he might have to travel a bit further. He knew that some people built their homes away from where most everyone else in a surface settlement clustered their houses together. Maybe the one that would become the fourteenth member of their company had done the same.

It would fit the mindset of a burglar to seclude himself from everyone else after all.

So Balin had proceeded to walk further, and by the time he realized that yes, the so-called path he was following really was just a rarely-traveled track leading into wide fields of wheat, he'd already reached the end of Hobbiton. With a sigh of resignation, he followed the track the rest of the way, until he reached an altogether different road. Then, for lack of a better option, he was forced to basically double back.

By the time he reached the faithful crossroads again, the sun had disappeared beyond the horizon and clouds had overtaken the sky where it used to shine.

The white-haired dwarf stroked his impressive beard and was torn between relief that he'd at least returned to the last correct waypoint, and the wish that he wasn't the only one who got lost.

He was going to just wait at the crossing until someone else from his company hopefully showed up, assuming there even were others running as late as he was. All the while, he wished he'd prevailed upon Gandalf that they use the Shire inn as the meeting point before they sought out their burglar.

And would you look at that, the rain had finally started!

Balin sighed and hoped he didn't look too miserable, leaning against the signpost and waiting for nature to give him a good soak, whether he wanted it or not. Soon enough, the drizzle would turn into full-blow downpour and his horrible day would be complete.

Then again, maybe if he looked miserable enough, someone would miraculously pop up and provide him with a way out of his wretched and embarrassing situation.

As it turned out, what happened was somewhere in the middle. The rain was a signal for everyone to run back to their homes. And hobbit children always seemed to gather in groups to play. One such group came running down the hill and broke off once the first large raindrops started to fall, and one of the hobbitlings, a lad, ran past him. Or would've, had he not stopped to stare at him in surprise and, curiously enough, recognition? "'Scuse me mister, do you have a friend who's bald?"

Balin blinked. Well, that was blunt, but he cared more about the implications of the question than the boy's manners. "As a matter of fact, young lad, I do."

"You'll want to head over to Bag End then." The lad waved in the direction of the road that had gotten him so very sidetracked earlier in the day. "Master Baggins will get you sorted out. 'S'where the bald dwarf man went anyway, and he was as lost as you are."

Mahal's beard, was he so obvious?

Thunder cut off whatever else they were going to say. "Sorry, mister, I gotta go. Mum'll cuff my ears off if I come in dripping rain all over her new rugs. Bye!" And he was gone as quick as he'd appeared.

As he stared after the lad, Balin couldn't help but notice that hobbits seemed to be really quick on those hairy, bare feet of theirs.

And astonishingly quiet.

A second blast of thunder and lightning snapped the dwarf out of his musings. Maybe he should do as the lad said. At this point, he was too tired to feel embarrassed to show up at someone's door uninvited. Even if it turned out it was a false lead, maybe the residents would let him take shelter under their canopy.

As quickly as he could, Balin traversed the length of Bagshot Row, until he finally reached the hobbit-hole in question. And when he did, he could only stop at the gate and stare at what now decorated the front door. A sheet of paper bearing the Burglar's mark was now displayed openly, and the rain didn't seem to even touch it. He was sure it hadn't been there the first time he passed by.

With a sigh of relief, Balin quickly made his way to the door. His morale was buoyed when he began to hear multiple voices, even if they did sound as though they were coming from pretty far in. There was a wooden canopy above the doorstep, which finally got him out of the rain. He took a few moments to shake off the rainwater as best as he could before knocking on the door three times.

He waited and was about to knock again when the door finally swung inward. Balin was _this_ close to doing the customary 'Balin, son of Fundin, at your service' bow when he noticed that the one who'd opened the door was Dwalin, of all people.

Dwalin, who looked at him like he was a gift from their god himself. "Oh, thank the stone! Some sense in all this madness."

"Brother? Why are you the one opening the door-" Dwalin just grabbed his wrist and pulled him a fair way inside the hallway, giving the door the evil eye. "Dwalin, what– " the door swung shut without any aid, and he felt Dwalin tense and flinch minutely through the hold he still had on his wrist. "- huh."

Dwalin's eyes kept shifting frantically from corridor to corridor. He helped him take off his travel pack, then his coat (practically throwing it onto the clothes tree), and ushered him to the chest that had been laid out for their weapons and whatever else they didn't want to be encumbered by. "Put whatever stuff you want in the chest, but don't touch it!" Dwalin hissed. "And don't touch the doors. And the furniture. Stay away from the furniture."

Balin couldn't have boggled his eyes any wider even if he tried. "If we'd greeted each other in the customary manner, I would be asking myself if we bumped heads together hard enough to mess with my senses."

Dwalin looked at him like he was crazy. "I'm serious!" And he was keeping his voice low, even though there was no one nearby to overhear them.

"… what."

Dwalin's whole posture slumped. Then the mighty warrior gave a nervous look around the hallway before he shuffled to _huddle_ behind Balin as if… as if he was _hiding_. What the pit? "Dwalin, what's gotten into you?"

"It's this place!" Dwalin hissed under his breath again. "It's alive. Or haunted, I'm not sure. Never believed the stories, but I do now."

Balin gave him a flat look. "You've never been into pranking, Dwalin, and you should do yourself the favor and not start now. You're too far behind. Leave it to Thorin's boys-"

"This house has been trying to _fondle_ me ever since I came in!"

Balin's jaw froze half-open.

There was an awkward silence.

Had he just heard…? "Dwalin…" He said carefully. "Have you suffered any head injuries lately?"

"None that would give me visions of doors that open and close on their own," Dwalin snapped. "You saw it, don't deny it! It happened just now! And the windows, they open or close whenever I pass by them. And the furniture never stays in place! One minute the chair is where it should be but when I take my eyes off it for a moment it's suddenly pulled away from the table and turned towards me, as if _beckoning_ me to sit on it. And the _curtains_." Dwalin shuddered and hugged himself. "Mahal, the _curtains_."

Balin experienced a mind blank. There was no _way_ the sight before him was real. "Right. Well!" he brushed some non-existing dust off his partly-sodden jumper. "You get that figured out. In the meantime I'll try to smarten up. I assume this place has a washroom of some sort?"

As if the words were a magic incantation to summon the fae, a door closed somewhere with an ominous _thunk_. Then, another one located on the left side of the corridor Balin was facing, swung open. Beyond it, another opened. At the same time, the oil lamps lighting the other two hallways dimmed to the point where barely anything could be seen anymore.

The white-haired dwarf stared, open-mouthed, at that occurrence.

"Well, go on then," Dwalin urged from behind him, suddenly far less scared out of his mind than before, all in favor of gloating. How _dwarfish_ of him. "What are you waiting for?" That smug, self-righteous cad! "The house is _beckoning_ you. See how helpful it's trying to be?"

Balin laughed. It sounded nervous even to his own ears. "Yes, well…" He grudgingly turned to behold his brother again. "On second thought, maybe you should first tell me exactly what's happened here so far."

After ten minutes of listening, Balin had a fairly clear picture. Gandalf had botched everything up in a most spectacular manner and made them all look like fools. Their host – one Bilbo Baggins – set about preparing dinner for them anyway, and was upset with Gandalf on their behalf instead of justifiably getting the impression that they were all idiots.

A miracle, that's what it was.

Balin had apparently been the next-to-last to arrive, the only one still absent being Thorin. Kili and Fili had shown up not long after Dwalin. Then the 'oin brothers joined them (Oin and Gloin). Then came the 'ri siblings (Dori, Nori and Ori) together with the 'ur brothers (Bifur, Bofur and Bombur), who'd all been gathered up like stray dwarflings by the wizard himself.

Unfortunately, the sizable Bombur was bringing up the rear, and when the door opened and he leaned forward to try and get a look at the hobbit, he sent all six dwarves crashing forward… right on top of Bilbo Baggins.

Balin winced, and even Dwalin looked chagrined while he relayed the story in low tones.

Apparently, Bilbo Baggins managed to shrug off the near death experience and welcomed the six dwarves anyway, after which he proceeded to give Gandalf the silent treatment, seasoned with the occasional evil eye. Also, as Dwalin was most gleeful to recount, the wizard had seemed rather prone to tripping on loose rug edges and bumping into chairs and tables during the first hour of his stay. Then, after he hit his head on a chandelier which (as Dwalin distinctly remembered) used to be quite a bit higher up before Gandalf arrived, the wizard retired to a chair in the dining room and sat down to smoke his pipe in sulking silence.

The former dwarven lord could only listen on in horrified fascination.

Bilbo Baggins was well on the way to preparing a veritable feast by that point – he'd felt no shame in asking Dwalin to cart off half a pig, plus sacks of potatoes and flour up from the basement – then, as compensation for nearly squashing him to death, Bombur asked to help. Bilbo said there was no need, they were guests, but Bombur insisted. Master Baggins insisted right back, and Bombur insisted again himself.

All the other dwarves had spread along the walls or were stretching their necks to watch the scene from just outside the kitchen. Their heads had taken to swiveling from one cook to the other. And not much later, Balin arrived, and Dwalin came to answer the door himself because the Master of the House and Bombur had started an impromptu cooking contest by that point.

Somehow.

At the end of the tale, Balin shook his head in bemusement. Even if it turned out they had come here for nothing – Bilbo Baggins seemed more like an aristocrat with a cooking hobby than a burglar – traveling all the way here was probably worth it for the entertainment value alone.

Then again, the Hobbit lived in a haunted house.

Hell of a way to throw off all expectations.

For a while, none of the two brothers said anything.

Then Dwalin spoke. "It's quiet." He looked around suspiciously. Balin noted that the hallways were still dim. "Too quiet. Why is it so quiet?"

"I suppose it really is quiet," Balin murmured, looking around himself. What had happened to the shouts Dwalin had mentioned? "Where did you say the kitchen was?"

And for the second time in the past half an hour, the house changed. The doors leading to the washroom (the closest one anyway) closed, and the corresponding hallway dimmed, while one of the others lit up. And as the flames in the oil lamps regained proper strength, the sounds of cheering abruptly reached the two dwarves, as if their ears had suddenly been unclogged.

Balin blinked in astonishment. The house could isolate sound? And knew to do it when it thought someone wanted privacy?

Forget Dwalin's skittishness, he wanted one!

"Now what would they be cheering about?" Dwalin muttered, then bravely strode down the hallway leading to the commotion.

Balin followed. It wasn't like he had a better idea. And the further he got, the better he could hear.

First came Bombur's voice. "Ha! Match _this_ expert maneuver of dwarven cuisine, master hobbit!"

Then came a much smoother tenor that could only belong to their host. "Oh, you mean like this?"

Sputters, then cheers from different voices. "-Go!- Do it again! – Is that even possible?"

And some were particularly enthusiastic. "Go master Boggins!"

Balin almost palmed his face at prince Kili's antics, but he didn't need to.

"_Baggins_, young man, or you won't get any desert."

"Yes sir! Sorry sir!"

Balin almost choked.

"That's a good lad – hey! Trying to surprise me, Master Bombur?"

"A true cook is never surprised in his domain!"

"Oh, it is _on!_"

When Balin finally reached the commotion and Dwalin pushed Bifur and Nori aside to make room for the two of them, he found he could do nothing but stare. And really, he couldn't be faulted for that! What else could he do when faced with the sight of a hobbit and dwarf juggling onions, potatoes, tomatoes and various other vegetables over the cooking table?

The various foodstuffs kept flying between the two cooks, steadily picking up speed. And as that happened, Bumbur became more and more flustered, while Master Baggins kept a self-assured smirk firmly in place.

Balin didn't know what he had been was expecting, but he was sure it wasn't this. The hobbit was shorter than them all, and he even lacked the pot belly that seemed to define his kind. His brown hair was curly and he had the most vivid green eyes. And his hands were almost a blur as they easily tracked the edible projectiles and sent them back to his apparent opponent.

And despite that he did not wear an apron, there was not even the smallest of smudges on his clothes.

Balin tore his eyes away from the hobbit and took in the stained apron Bombur was wearing, and the flour on his beard and in his hair.

Trading a look with his brother, he found the same conclusion there.

His kinsman didn't stand a chance.

And, apparently, Bilbo Baggins had no qualms about relishing that fact. Slowly, with brazen ease and without moving his eyes from Bombur's own, he moved his right hand away and reached for a kitchen knife, keeping up the juggling game using only his left.

Then he, very pointedly, began to chop a leek. Each slash of the knife was measured and loud in the round room. It was like everyone was holding their breath.

Wait. They _were_.

"Fili!"

The blond prince jumped in place, startled, and the spell was broken, allowing everyone to breathe again.

Perhaps Bilbo Baggins was kind in his own way.

"There's a good lad," Bilbo, still smirking at a now reddening and tiring Bombur, tossed a pinch of chopped leeks over his shoulder. Even the tiniest bits made it into the cauldron steaming above the fire in the hearth. "Get me one of those garlic braids, will you?" he pointed at the far corner of the room. "Walk around me. No need to disturb master Bombur by brushing past him."

Which meant that he shouldn't bother trying to slip past Bombur because his wide girth took up all the space between his side of the table and the wall. Master Baggins was just too polite to say it.

"Right!" The prince obediently scurried to do as he was told.

One of Bombur's hands strayed, as if he was reaching for the pork ribs next to him, but he had to abandon the idea and return it to the juggling. He managed to avoid a disaster. Barely. Sweat was pooling in beads on his brow.

"Does that mean Fili gets more desert than the others?" Kili asked, forlorn. Although his eyes were still riveted on the juggling vegetables.

For a moment, the hobbit's smirk shifted into something akin to fondness.

Bombur made another attempt at juggling one-handed, and after a second of uncertainty seemed to manage. Balin felt an absurd burst of pride for his kin, but when he turned to study the hobbit's reaction he noticed that there were an onion and a tomato next to his cutting board. An onion and a tomato that had been flying through the air until a few seconds before.

The realization made the elderly dwarf stare at the hobbit again. Master Baggins had removed them from the contest without Bombur noticing, just to make it easier on him.

Bilbo Baggins was kind indeed.

Fili gave a grunt of frustration. "I can't reach them, is there a stool I could – Wha!" The prince fumbled, barely caught the garlic when it fell in his hands. For his part, Balin raised his eyebrows at the kitchen knife that had flown across the room from Bilbo's hand and had stuck into the wooden rail, cutting the garlic braid loose in the process.

Bilbo Baggins pulled the tomato onto his cutting board and calmly reached for the other knife located to the right of it. There were three other knives to his left though, neatly lined up, with their hilts sticking out past the edge of the table.

Fili brought him the garlic, which he took and set aside, next to a truly large bowl of eggs. Then Bilbo sent the lad off with a nod of thanks, and resumed cooking, his unwavering smile still aimed at the nearly exhausted Bombur.

But the dwarf still had some defiance left. Struggling to keep the vegetable tossing going, he flared his nostrils, pulled a strip of raw pork ribs in front of him and began to chop at it with a cleaver.

Viciously.

"Master Bombur," Bilbo said calmly. His knife had almost finished cutting the ripe tomato into perfect cubes. "You're looking a bit peaky. Are you sure you are feeling well?" Balin caught the considering glance that Bilbo shot the onion he'd previously removed from the game. "Perhaps you wish for a break? There would be no shame in it. Other than my adoptive father, I have yet to meet anyone that could keep up with me in the kitchen."

Balin barely had time to ponder on the issue of adopted parents before Bombur snarled and brought the cleaver down with more force than he'd used up to that point.

It cut through rib bone, but it also sent a chunk soaring straight up, and disaster became unavoidable when the startled dwarf flailed, trying to catch it, thus slapping the vegetables coming at him in every direction.

It was battle fervor. Adrenaline. Balin watched in slow motion as Bombur threw himself to the side, heroically trying to save the first thing he laid his eyes on – which happened to be a potato – all the while releasing a deep, bellowing, desperate cry of "Nnnnooooooh-"

A silver streak cut the air, there came a THUNK, and suddenly a knife was embedded through a tomato, tip buried an inch deep into the wall right behind where Bumbur's head had been a second before.

But Bilbo Baggins was still moving. _Had_ moved, brought his left arm sweeping upwards, throwing the three kitchen knives into the air above him. Nimble fingers caught one by the tip and sent it flying, then his right hand caught the second, and his left grabbed the third by the hilt.

Bombur smashed shoulder-first into the ground, potato safely held in his shaking hands.

And Bilbo Baggins shot his right arm out, and the left one overhead.

Steel pierced onion and garlic bulbs, dull clunks sounded even before anyone saw the knives embed themselves in wood and plaster. Kili yelped and jumped away from the blade that was suddenly rattling ten inches from his left shoulder. And as the princeling fell on his backside and brought half the company down with him like drunk dominoes, Balin watched as Bilbo Baggins used a hand to hurl himself over the table, twisting horizontally through the air and finally crashing right on top of his erstwhile opponent, arm stretched out as far as he could get it.

The piece of meat that had been sent airborne landed safely inside the ladle.

There was an awkward pause, broken only by the painful groans of a chef that had become the landing cushion of a hobbit, and those of an audience squashed under the weight of a dwarven youngling.

… When on Arda had the hobbit even _grabbed_ the ladle? Where had it even _come from_?

Bilbo Baggins slipped off the moaning dwarf and smoothly stood on his feet, clothes barely ruffled and still as spotless as ever. Then he flipped the ladle backwards, not even looking at what he was doing.

The pork rib landed right in the middle of the steaming cauldron, and not a single drop of broth was spilled.

Balin was proud to say that he did not gape. Unlike many of the others.

Bilbo Baggins looked down at the wheezing form of the obese dwarven chef, then gave the rest of the company a cursory gaze, until his eyes met his own. "Huh. Who're you?"

The latest arrival shook himself and cleared his throat. "Ahem. Balin, son of Fundin." He found that the bow came easier than it usually did. "At your service."

The hobbit nodded in return. "Bilbo Baggins, at yours and your family's."

Which was when everyone else finally noticed that he existed. "Oh, hi!" Ori blurted, and was followed by "Hey Balin's!" and "Hello sirs's."

"Right!" The voice of the Master of the House cut through the mire before it could really get started. "Fili! Kili!"

Both yelped and were suddenly standing at attention. "Yes?" It was a comical sight really. The blond, older brother was trying to pick his younger sibling off the floor one moment, and the next they were both standing straight and stiff as though their uncle had caught them in the middle of a prank.

Bilbo approached, took them by the wrists and dragged them to the left corner of the room, where he sat them on a pair of stools Balin hadn't known were there. "You two can stay because Bag End adores you."

The two young dwarves grinned and puffed their chests. "Does that mean we get cake?" Kili asked.

"No," Bilbo said unrepentantly. He even ignored their pouts and doe-eyes, moving to retrieve the knives and vegetables from the walls instead. "But you can get early servings of the stew if you behave." Returning the items to the table, he went and helped Bombur off the floor. For something so slight, he must have had better than average strength if he managed to pry the large dwarf off the floor. "Master Bombur, you may stick around and assist, as you have proven yourself quite able. Though I will say again that you are an honored guest in my home and need not do anything of the sort."

The dwarf in question huffed and tucked the end of his long beard back into his collar. He didn't seem upset though. "Face it, Master Baggins. You need all the help you can get if you're going to feed all those lumps behind you."

"Ah yes!" The hobbit strode around the table and picked up his knives as he went. "Since we're on the topic." He reached the far side of the table and turned his back on everyone, then began to juggle the blades as if it were a normal pastime. And maybe it was. "I'd better only have to say this once." He tossed the knives into the air and behind him, and they all landed, tip first, into the tabletop, neatly lined up, from smallest to biggest.

The clumps echoed ominously in the hushed silence, one by one by one.

Bilbo Baggins pulled out a drawer hidden by his frame from everyone's sight, paused for effect…

The light of the chandelier up top dimmed even though the fire did not go out. Darkness descended upon the room like the shade of a crumbling mountain, and the fire in the hearth sputtered, failing to dispel the gloom regardless of how strong it still blazed and crackled. The only thing still visible was Bombur's startled face, the only thing that the fire's light still reached. Then even that was gone.

Only a streak of steel was seen when Bilbo Baggins spun on his heels. Two glowing green eyes glared at the watchers as a chef's knife as large as an entire forearm was driven tip-first into hard oak wood with a flinch-inducing smash. "GET OUT OF MY KITCHEN!"

The room emptied of people so fast that Balin was almost run over in the chaos. As Dwalin barely caught him and pulled him out of the stampede, the old dwarf wondered which he should choose between feeling awed or succumbing to alarm.

In the end, he settled for the latter.

Mahal, what was Gandalf trying to unleash upon their company?


	2. The Shire-2: Masterfully Miscomunicated

**A/N: **I've decided to use Thorin's character as it was in the film, because though I am loathe to admit it it seemed a bit deeper and likelier to come about than the one in the book. Tolkien's Thorin was a bit flippant about the hardships the dwarves went through after Smaug, and the Company seemed primarily interested in the gold and getting rich than helping their people recover from the disaster.

And the dwarves were mostly one-dimensional characters, whereas the films gave them actual traits and hidden depths.

No tunes in this chapter, since Bilbo doesn't play or sing anything. I did find some awesome ones that gave me some ideas for the next installment, which will finally start the journey, and not in any way you guys might expect.

* * *

><p><strong>The Shire – 2: Masterfully Miscommunicated<strong>

"-. .-"

Bilbo didn't think his satisfaction at running those big lumps out of his kitchen like terrified fauntlings would dwindle any time soon. Even after Fili and Kili helped move the food that had finished cooking and settled on their own seats, he was still very smug inside, even if he didn't show it. So one might imagine his surprise when that self-satisfaction totally popped like a balloon no more than fifteen minutes after he laid down the law. And, as was the case with so very many things, it was all Dwalin's fault.

"Excuse me, Master Dwalin, _what?_" Bilbo sputtered, freezing in mid-motion from where he was reaching forward to place a tray of smoked beef on the table in the main dining room. "_What_ did you say had become of Gandalf?"

In any other situation it would have been amusing to see the large dwarf sitting so stiffly. "He's been in the room across the hall since he got tired of being harassed by this dam-" Bilbo almost pulled the tray away, and Dwalin cut himself off with a glowering grimace. "Harassed by your _home_." The dwarf gave the meat a hungry look but thought better than to reach for it. Bilbo could just decide to really reconsider and take it away.

Bilbo focused outward, knowing his eyes would go unfocused, but he didn't care what he looked like now. Images and impressions flittered across his awareness and when he finally had an idea of what he'd missed, he groaned and finally set the tray on the table, ignoring how his guests descended on it like starving beasts. "Oh Eru!" He frowned at the bald dwarf, noticing from the corner of his eye that Balin seemed very curious about the exchange. And not just him. "And you didn't feel it relevant enough to mention?" The hobbit hissed.

Dwalin peered at him suspiciously, looking around nervously while still chewing on a half-swallowed strip of meat. "Wasn't that what you wanted?" He asked, lowly. Lowly for a dwarf anyway. "I thought you controlled everything this house does!" He hissed back.

"I do! But I don't always pay attention! Bag End has its own mind!" The hobbit groaned again, rubbing at his temples. "Here I've been thinking I was a decent host, but now it seems I'm terrible!'

"No don't say that mister Boggi-" The blazing wood in the fireplace crackled like a collapsing tree house and Bilbo's glare settled firmly on the youngest prince's face. "Baggins!" Kili hastily corrected. "You're a wonderful host! Great!"

"Perfect!" Fili hurried to add when his brother elbowed him in the side.

"Marvelous!" Bofur hastened to add.

"Splendid!"

"Attentive!"

"Mighty thoughtful!"

Bilbo rolled his eyes at the increasingly ridiculous and not-at-all heartfelt praises and walked out of the room, knowing Bombur would see to the rest until he had to go check on the roast and pies.

Now that he'd shoved the distraction provided by the dwarves aside, he could sense that Bag End wasn't _only_ gushing over the new creatures anymore. There was something else, which Bilbo would have normally noticed if there weren't 12 dwarves taking up his attention. Something like wariness and, for the first time ever, defiant protectiveness.

That was new, and it made Bilbo frown. Bag End had _never_ reacted defensively before, on his behalf or its own, because there had never been anyone it felt could pose a _threat_. Had Gandalf unnerved it somehow?

Bilbo went through what he knew of Maia and tried to hypothesize what would happen if one of them and Bag End clashed in a confrontation of will and _being_.

When he reached the obvious conclusion, he winced.

But Bag End had not felt threatened by Gandalf the previous day, when the rune episode happened. Which meant that something had to have happened over the past two hours for the new wariness to make sense.

Bilbo found Gandalf in the sitting room closest to the entrance hallway. The Wizard was on an armchair, nibbling on his pipe which, Bilbo noticed, was not lit, nor had any tobacco in it. His eyes were closed, but the hobbit doubted his arrival had gone unnoticed. With a thought, the air outside the room stilled. No sounds would escape that room until he willed otherwise. "Gandalf."

The wizard had not taken his hat off, and the outside light had gone dim, making everything seem shrouded in semi-darkness, but his blue-grey eyes were perfectly visible when they finally opened. "Bilbo." He moved his pipe away from his mouth and favored him with a wry smile. "Come to finally take pity on an old man?" Back when he was a child, Bilbo's mother had often said that despite how aggravating the wizard could be, she could never really stay mad at him for long because he just gave you this _look_ and…

Bilbo sighed explosively, trudged over to grab another armchair and dragged it right in front of the one Gandalf had taken. Bag End made it easy for him to pull furniture around like that.

The hobbit threw himself in the chair groaned in relief. Hosting a company of dwarves was hard work. He didn't allow himself too long a moment, though, before he met the surprisingly earnest gaze of the wizard. "Gandalf." A beat. "It seems I have wronged you. I apologize."

The wizard's thick eyebrows disappeared under the brim of his hat.

"I am very cross with you," Bilbo carried on before he could chicken out. "But I never intended to repay your rude actions of the past day with more than the occasional glower. I never intended nor ordered my home to harass you in the matter that has only just been brought to my attention. Had I not been preoccupied with the others, Bag End's actions towards you, or rather _against_ you, would not have gone past my notice-"

"-Bilbo-"

"-TURNABOUT is fair play," Bilbo continued. He was determined to say his piece. "But on that note my own treatment of you would have been sufficient. Especially when I have been going on about my reputation as a perfect host, which I definitely am not anymore now that I have discriminated between my guests in such a loathsome manner. What Bag End has done in retaliation was disproportionate-"

"_Bilbo-_"

"-regardless of how endearing it was if it was on my behalf, though I am not altogether sure it _was_ on mine, since I haven't mind-melded deeply enough to check yet-"

"-BILBO!"

The hobbit shut his mouth with a dull clamp and pursed his lips, narrowing his eyes at the wizard who'd sat up in his chair, looking aggravated. Gandalf was looking at him as if he'd seen him for the first time and wasn't sure what race he belonged to.

It felt oddly appropriate.

"Interrupting someone is rude you know," Bilbo said in the ensuing silence.

The wizard harrumphed, easing back in his chair. "I think we are both well past the point where we pay heed to such concerns, are we not?"

"I suppose s-" Bilbo jerked in his seat at the rush of _caution-suspicion- alarm _that came over him.

The hobbit and wizard shared an uncomfortable and heavy silence for a time.

"I assume that was your home warning you clear of me?" Gandalf asked, a touch contrite. "It is not entirely undeserved, I fear."

That admission completely swept away all pretenses. "What on earth _happened_?" Bilbo breathed, not sure _who_ he was directing that question to.

Gandalf smiled sadly. "Such amazing creatures, Hobbits. You can learn everything about them in a year, and even after so long they can still surprise you."

Bilbo grimaced. "I think we both know I'm not longer a normal hobbit."

"Oh, but you _are,_" And Gandalf sounded totally certain of that. "You just added some extra facets."

"… You'll be grilling me for information then I suppose?" Bilbo wasn't sure how he would react to an interrogation.

"Honestly, no," Gandalf reached up and removed his hat at last, placing it on a counter nearby. He'd probably kept it on until that point because he doubted it would meet a pleasant fate if he left it behind somewhere, out of sight. "I do have questions, but also theories. And I believe I shall find the challenge of putting the puzzle of _you_ together quite refreshing."

Bilbo was actually pleasantly surprised by that. "I think I'm starting to see why mother liked you."

"Belladonna Took was a dear friend." And there was no lie or indulgence in that statement. "Perhaps someday I will be able to call you by a similar title."

Bilbo eyed the man evenly. It was honestly rather baffling that Gandalf the Grey would seek out companionship among the simple folk of The Shire. Or that the wizard seemed so fond and careful of hobbits as a whole. The hobbit knew that the Grey Pilgrim was a significant reason of why the Rangers of the old Kingdom of Arnor still guarded the borders of the Shire from the darkness.

He told Gandalf as much.

The reaction was delight. "Perhaps if _you_ one day call me by a similar title I will share the reasons for that with you." Yes, delight indeed. Delight at the possibility of leaving the Hobbit hanging.

Well, turnabout _was_ fair play.

The Master of Bag End knew he looked like he'd swallowed something sour, but he didn't bother with putting on a performance anymore. "Well, _friendship_ still depends on your explanation of what happened between you and my home."

"I knew something was… strange when I came and found my rune gone," Gandalf started, looking out the window at the rapidly disappearing twilight. "I should have detected the… presence yesterday, but I fear I did your home the same disfavor I did you." Gandalf looked at him again. "Which is to say, I acted on false assumptions. With you it was the brazen assumption that I could steamroll into your life simply based on the fact that I had a very close rapport with your mother. Or perhaps I have grown proud and self-centered in my old age, though it is no excuse for treating you as if I had… as if I felt I _should _have more say in your life than yourself. It was unsightly of me, and I hope you will one day forgive me."

Bilbo forced himself to nod and not show his stupefaction openly. This sincere apology was _not_ what he expected.

"As for Bag End," Gandalf gestured around them with his pipe. "The… sentience_… _came to my attention when I stepped through the door earlier, and I fear I acted rather rashly."

Bilbo blinked. "You tried to mind link …" He realized.

The grey-robed wizard nodded gravely. "It was not my intention to appear hostile. I was… merely curious, and until our minds touched I did not think there _was_ any sentience, in truth. I thought it was _your_ mind I was reaching for, and when I did not get the reaction I expected, I may have… _pushed_ harder as I called for you specifically."

The understanding dawned on Bilbo with none of the relief and satisfaction that such an event would normally bring. "You _scared_ it…"

"I did not wish to, I assure you of that." Gandalf seemed to become tired all of a sudden. "But I did frighten it, though it reacted thus more on your behalf than anything else. I attempted to soothe it, but your home had no reason to trust me after I essentially committed physical harm upon it not a day before."

"That didn't hurt it, exactly," Bilbo was a bit bewildered by all these revelations, so he hoped Gandalf would excuse how he latched on the least relevant part of his confession. "I toss knives at walls all the time and the scratches and cuts mend in minutes. Your magic just… felt wrong."

"Invasive," the old man nodded. "I would have tried communicating again, more gently, but your home decided to show its displeasure with me in a more direct fashion, so I felt it prudent to wait until I could clear things up with you."

Bilbo Baggins stared at the wizard until it was almost long enough to be considered rude. "Or you could have intimidated it into submission."

"…"

"I'm not a simpleton, Gandalf." It may have been a touch cooler than he intended, but it was too late to take it back. "I know what you are. I know you could have obliterated-"

"BILBO BAGGINS!"

Bilbo flinched and shut up.

There was a cloud of darkness around the wizard for a moment and Bilbo could _feel_ Bag End straining between shrinking away in fright and reacting violently against the disturbance.

It came to neither.

Gandalf's whole body seemed to suddenly lose all strength. The wizard slumped back in his chair, looking older and more exhausted than Bilbo had ever seen _anyone_. "I have gathered many names over the centuries." There was a bone-deep weariness in the man's voice. "I do not wish to add bully and slayer of children to the list."

Bilbo felt like he'd been hit in the stomach with the blunt side of a shovel. Once, he might have bristled at the implications, but he was no normal hobbit anymore, nor a young one, so he could tell the remark had not been referring to him. "Gandalf…" Bilbo rubbed his temple. This discussion was a bit heavy for the late hour. Good thing he'd eaten his fill while cooking that feast. Even so, the wizard was probably seeing more things to be guilty of than there really were. "I'm not sure you can apply the same aging conventions to a _house_ as you can a man or hobbit."

Some spark of amusement seemed to come back to life in those old eyes. "And yet your home chose to confront me on its own, _and behind your back,_ by throwing a temper tantrum, no matter how many _logical_ reasons existed for that to be deemed unwise."

Bilbo thought back to that time when Billa Bracegirdle had accepted the marriage proposal from one of the Tooks across the water. Later in the day, when Billa left for the seamstress, her fauntling brother Bruno picked up a trowel and attacked the groom-to-be, declaring loudly that he would defeat him and protect his sister so that she wouldn't be taken away.

Bag End may have realized it was too young an existence and not (yet maybe) powerful enough to take on someone like Gandalf, so it wasn't a reaction born from ignorance. Probably. Let it never be said Bilbo held no loyalty towards his creation. "It wasn't a tantrum." Let it _also_ never be said that Bilbo Baggins was above teasing his own creations. "The way it's been mooning over the dwarves _is_ pretty hilarious and childish though."

Gandalf blinked and smiled, leaning forward. "Oh? Do tell."

Bilbo eyed him askance and made his decision. "I think I have something better." Reaching out with his mind, he treated his house to the best impression of an unimpressed owner and told it to suck up and get over his initial impression. "Try communicating now."

The wizard looked surprised, then reluctant, but after a while he finally placed his pipe (which he'd kept gesturing with through their conversation) into some pocket or other and settled back in his chair. After that, it only took a moment for something _new_ but somehow familiar to connect to the same… node, Bilbo supposed, he and Bag End met in every time they communed like this. All of a sudden, there were three lines meeting in a center, not just two. Bilbo could feel the youngest mind shying away in suspicion, but he coaxed it forward until Gandalf and Bag End finally introduced themselves to each other.

Bilbo, eyes closed, relaxed and smiled at the successful communication. Gandalf was minding his manners and not digging where he wasn't supposed to, which meant that Bilbo and his house could still trade thoughts and _knowing_ without the wizard realizing. Well, he probably could deduce it was happening, but he was not privy to the "discussion" all the same.

Which meant that he didn't know that Bag End _only_ agreed to open itself to Gandalf because Bilbo assured it that old Tom and the river daughter wouldn't stand for anyone harming their grandchild.

Gandalf probably had more of a point than he realized, about children and rash retorts.

After all, Bag End _was_ Bilbo's firstborn, after a fashion.

Once his home finally got over its initial impression and began to tentatively brush its mind against the Wizard's by its own initiative, Bilbo slowly pulled out of the connection and blinked away the haze that always lingered after that deep a communion. Seeing Gandalf sitting back, eyes closed and content, _fascinated_ even, he soundlessly slipped out of the room.

He still had some pies and cakes to finish after all, and that turkey was not going to come out of the oven alone.

"-. .-"

Kili would be lying if he said that wanting to get away (for a while) from the expectations of acting as "befitting" an Heir of the Durin line didn't play any part in his decision to join his uncle on this mad quest.

A quest to reclaim a mountain, and slay a dragon.

But it was only _one_ reason of many, and not even the main one. No, the main one was that he wanted to finally do something to repay his uncle and mother for everything they went through while raising him. And, okay, Fili too, but mostly he was the one that sought mischief when they were little, while Fili kept curbing the worst of his impulses while acting as though he was egging him on.

Kili doubted Thorin even now knew Fili had never actually planned any of their unruly behavior when they were children.

He also doubted Thorin knew how sorry Kili was for all the messes he caused as a dwarfling. Now, with the wisdom of age (though his mother would probably laugh at the idea he was anywhere resembling old and wise, and not just because he barely had a stubble) he could look back on those early days and know how often Thorin and Dis had trouble making enough money to get by. He could recognize the instances when the adults told them to go ahead and eat without them because they had people to meet or some last minute work to do. There were never such loose ends but Thorin and Dis didn't want them to know they were rationing the food they ate so he and Fili wouldn't have to.

History had dealt the dwarves a harsh hand, which meant that if they were to ever regain anything of what they'd lost they'd have to do it themselves.

So Kili had badgered and pestered and argued with those older than him until they relented and let him leave the Blue Mountains with the others. Well, the ones that happened to be there at the time anyway, since some were already on business on the other side of Eriador. He felt guilty for feeling glad that so few had answered Thorin's call. He was sure he and Fili would have been left behind if more dwarves had actually come forward.

As it was, the only ones that were warriors by profession were Dwalin, Dori, Thorin, Balin, Thorin of course, and the two of them, the youngest in the company. Well, Bifur too, never mind the axe head stuck in his… head, but anyway, their group was otherwise a company of bakers, toymakers, scribes, artists, crooks…

Kili knew Balin didn't have faith in this quest, that he thought it was wiser to stay in the Blue mountains. Thorin had managed to finally secure a life of comfort and plenty for them, and Kili agreed that it was better than how it used to be, and it was good not to have to be on the road all the time, dependent on Men and whatever business they could offer, assuming they even were willing to deal with dwarves in the first place.

But Thorin had sent a call. He'd even gotten an envoy sent from the Iron hills. Lord Dain Ironfoot himself, Thorin's cousin, was to come himself. And so Balin had gone against his pessimism and joined in, like the rest of them.

Thorin had doubts too, Kili knew. Sure, Gandalf had given him the key of King Thrain (and Kili's stomach still turned at the thought of his grandfather tortured by that dark force in Dol Guldur until he didn't even remember his own name). But Tharkûn refused to share more unless they followed his lead and met up in the Shire, of all places, to find a _burglar_, of all things.

Nori had grumbled for days, wondering why he wasn't good enough. Kili had wondered too.

But the wizard was wily. He had a way with words, and the way he acted, as though he felt entitled to having his opinion heard and his direction followed without question, was a lot like Thorin sometimes. And he was damn intimidating too.

And in the end, they all shared the same opinion, that the wizard was needed to deal with the dragon, so they may as well see what his whole idea about a hobbit burglar was all about. No matter how skeptical, rightfully or otherwise, they felt about the entire business. After all, what could the gentle folk know of adventure? What did hobbits know of burglary?

The Shire seemed to reinforce their doubts.

Then they finally found Bag End.

A hole in the ground.

A ludicrously cozy hole in the ground that made them feel more at home than they did anywhere beside the Blue Mountains, because things all around them were finally the _right size_.

And it was alive. So alive that Dwalin, big, mean, old, gruff, train-you-until-you-die-and-your-bruises-have-bruises-Dwalin was acting _skittish_ as if he expected some sort of ghost to jump at him from the shadows.

It was surreal.

Then they met Bilbo Baggins.

Sitting at the table now and inhaling food like there was no tomorrow, Kili felt absolutely _giddy_. Giddy at the homey feel of the hobbit-hole, awed at the shocking amount of different, delicious dishes, happy with how upbeat everyone seemed to be, and how united they were in their opinion that Dwalin's skittishness was hilarious.

Amazed at the fact that they were currently inside a house that was apparently _alive_.

And absolutely _relieved_ that they had living and breathing evidence that the trip all the way up here hadn't been a waste of time, because more than any of them, more than what even _Gandalf_ had expected, they were going to get what they came for. None of them would be disappointed, none would have to worry taking the hobbit along would be a mistake, because Bilbo Baggins was totally, positively, absolutely, undeniably _too awesome for words-_

Something struck the front door three times, loud and hard.

The noise echoed loudly through the house. Ominously, some might say, and the twelve dwarves at the table (Bombur had finally joined them not long before) abruptly stilled, some with food half-way into their mouths.

But Bilbo Baggins, who was in the process of distributing trays loaded with fried chicken legs, didn't seem to care about the knock. He slipped the last tray suspiciously close to Ori, who was squashed between his brothers, then stepped back from the table. Kili noted that the Hobbit still looked completely spotless, despite not having taken the normal precautions while cooking.

"I was wondering when he'd finally knock," the hobbit said absently, stretching.

"He is here." Gandalf rumbled ominously from where he'd suddenly materialized right outside the dining room entrance.

"I know." Kili's eyebrows shot up when Bilbo reached into his waistcoat pocket and pulled out a small, round, shiny silver object, tied by a chain. "He's been outside for…" A short squeeze made the top lid swing open with a soft click. "Huh. 20 minutes now."

"Indeed?" Gandalf murmured, seemingly just as interested in the object Bilbo was studying as Kili was.

Bilbo returned the item to his pocket and swept out of the room. "He's been sitting on the bench." The hobbit didn't seem to care about the company of dwarves skulking in his wake. "Heavens know why." From his tone, glib and self-assured, Kili rather suspected the Halfling had made his own opinion already.

Kili shared a somewhat concerned glance with his brother.

Bilbo Baggins reached the door and grabbed the brass knob located right at the middle of it.

The round, green door opened inward, and Bilbo Baggins leaned against the edge as his eyes finally landed on the black-haired, blue-eyed dwarf beyond the threshold. There he was, his uncle, in all his heavily armored, braided-haired, short-bearded glory. His dark blue fur coat only added to his great, _majestic_ aura.

Kili held his breath.

And his uncle chose that, of all times, to put his foot in his mouth. "Gandalf." He'd barely even looked at Bilbo. He hadn't even acknowledged him, sweeping his gaze past him instead, to look at the wizard. "You said this place would be easy to find." Then he grandly strode into the house, not sparing Bilbo even a glance. "I got lost. Twice." And, obviously, it was not his fault at all, was what his tone implied. "I would not even have found it if not for that sign on the door."

Kili, to his surprise, found himself growing uncomfortable. He'd never had a problem with Thorn acting like he owned the place, because, technically, in the Blue Mountains he _did_ own the place, sort of…

But by the gleam in Bilbo's eyes, the youngest prince was pretty sure his uncle had well and truly made a horrible first impression.

Gandalf cleared his throat. Was he uncomfortable? And was it just Kili's imagination, or did the light of the candlesticks get just a bit dimmer? "Bilbo Baggins, may I introduce you to the leader of our company, Thorin Oakenshield."

And, naturally, Thorin _had_ to slap on that haughty smile and look down on their host from the get-go. "So. This is the _hobbit_." The word sounded like an insult.

Kili almost missed the way Bilbo's eyes flashed, but he didn't know what that emotion was. He just knew it wasn't anything good.

With an almost careless push, Bilbo closed the door.

And the King Under the Mountain (to be) began to circle him, slowly. And Kili wanted to palm his face. This wasn't supposed to become an interrogation! "Tell me mister Baggins, have you done much fighting?" As if he was stalking an enemy. Bemusedly, the black-haired, nearly beardless dwarf saw Dwalin making halting, almost frantic movements from the corner of his eye. Sadly, Thorin had his back to them.

Damn.

"Pardon me?" And Bilbo didn't even try to turn around, though he did tilt his head, and his eyes went distant for a moment, just as the candle light flickered again, though the flames did not waver in the least.

Not good.

"Axe or sword. What is your weapon of choice?" It was clear to them all that Thorin had already reached an opinion about their host, and it was not at all high.

Not good, not good at all.

Bilbo shook his head and crossed his arms, raising an eyebrow when the dwarf finally ended up in front of him once more. "Well, I do happen to be fairly good at conkers, if you must know."

Kili couldn't see his uncle smirk, but he knew he'd done it anyway. It was clear in his voice. "Thought as much." Then he half-turned to share his grand joke with them. "He looks more like a grocer than a burglar."

For that half a second while Thorin was looking at them, Bilbo's eyes narrowed.

Then his face smoothed into the perfect mask of placidity, not responding to the derisive amusement that Thorin Oakenshield aimed at him. The King Under the Mountain slowly turned away from him to head in the direction of the dining room, as if he owned the place-

Only to suddenly trip and fall on his face as soon as he made to go through the closest alcove.

Kli gaped, not so much at the fall but at the squawk that his uncle produced when he lost his balance and tripped on the edge of the carpet that had been perfectly smooth and stretched until that point. The prince heard more than saw Dwalin drop his head and rub his eyes. And Bifur's muttered Khuzdul left him torn between hysterics and mortification.

"Are you alright, master dwarf?" Kili's eyes snapped around, shocked to see that Bilbo had disappeared from the hallway. He'd somehow snuck around them all and ended up on the inside of the room during the short commotion. "That was quite the fall." His words of concern rung with a genuineness that everyone somehow knew was totally fake. He was standing over the fallen form the dwarf. "I won't pry into your business, since we Hobbits are very clear on privacy and manners, you see." Kili winced at the direct jab. "But you _have_ been sitting on my bench for near half an hour now, for whatever reason. Have the rain and night chill gotten to you? I can brew an excellent tea for the cold if you have one."

Thorin, who had climbed to his feet with as much composure as he could scrounge together after that embarrassing display, seemed to be doing his best not to glare too obviously. "That won't be necessary." Kili was amazed his teeth didn't shoot sparks, with how tightly they were grinding together.

"Oh." Was all Bilbo said. "Okay then." After which the hobbit promptly turned on his heel (thus totally dismissing the presence of the newest arrival) and marched through the sitting room and another hallway until he reached the dining room and casually sat himself at the head of the table, putting together a plate worthy of royalty without paying mind to anyone else.

Kili wondered when Bilbo had had the time to drag his armchair there.

Not much later, Thorin pointedly took the seat at the other end of the table, the one that put the round window and the merrily blazing hearth at his back. Bag End seemed to have lots of those.

With a cringe, Kili, son of Dis, shared a worried look with his more fair-haired brother, who looked no less pained than himself.

Both of them had been _sure_ that things would go oh so _well_ between their uncle and their burglar.

Fat chance.

"-. .-"

Nori wondered what in Mahal's beard he had been thinking. He may like to act all smug and self-assured, as if he was the most upbeat person on Middle Earth, but that was just a performance he put on for the benefit of everyone else. He was one who had grown from petty thief to petty crime ring leader, then all the way to (oft-downtrodden like all his kin) spy master after Smaug totally shattered their livelihood, blurring the lines between the good dwarves and bad. After spending decades keeping up his legally ambiguous ways and preempting assassination attempts against Thorin and his family (thankfully few and without them knowing, for the most part, but even those were more than there should have been), his hope for a better future had been well and truly shot.

And with it, so had his hope for pretty much any sort of good turn. It was great being a doomsayer. It meant that if you were ever surprised, it could only be in a good way.

So what in The Halls of the Ancestors was he thinking, indulging in optimism?! It's not like he'd been given enough cause to think Thorin and Bilbo Baggins would hit it off! Sure, the hobbit was lean and elegant, cultured and quick-witted, a master of knives no matter how unbalanced, the best cook _ever_ and charming as _sin_, but that wasn't enough cause to…

Oh, who was he kidding? There had been plenty of reasons to be optimistic!

And yet they hated each other on sight.

Which meant that the fact Nori ended up _un_pleasantly surprised was all Thorin's fault. He was going to strangle that troublesome dwarf someday. Thorin would deserve it and Nori would enjoy it.

Now if only he could rid himself of that little shred of morality he still possessed…

Drat. Loyalty was so troublesome.

At least the hobbit (and no, Nori didn't say or think the word as an insult) didn't seem to hold Thorin's "introduction" against the rest of them. After finally sitting down at the table to join the feast he'd cooked, Bilbo Baggins kept up a steady stream of conversation with whoever was willing to reciprocate, especially the princes (the two were surprisingly taken with him, though Nori suspected Bilbo had bought them off with pastries) and Ori.

He was chatting despite that Dori had sat himself between the hobbit and their younger brother, supposedly to act as a barrier.

From the conversation with his younger brother, Nori could see that Bilbo shared Ori's love of all things written and drawn. Bilbo even shared his passion for creating maps, which was a surprising skill really, although Nori would be the first to admit they didn't know much about hobbits so he wasn't the one to judge. Or shouldn't be anyway.

Which was pretty unacceptable for the one supposed to _know_ things. Too bad they couldn't stay in the Shire for a while. He had a feeling it wouldn't actually be a waste of time to spend a day or two learning about the supposedly gentlest folk on Middle Earth.

Although he could admit he was learning enough from just this one hobbit. Their incredible capacity for putting away food being one of them. Stone, where was all that food going? And how in the world was the Hobbit devouring it so fast and without making a mess of himself? And he thought Bombur was an endless pit when it came to eating!

And as Nori had noticed before, Bilbo Baggins did it all while keeping up various conversations, and without speaking with his mouth full even once.

It was baffling.

But not as much as his ability to completely turn around everything Thorin said to him, and twist every comment about him into a compliment.

"_Well, at least this feast means you lived up to my expectations of you, such as they were."_

_"Yes, I don't know about dwarves but we hobbits love food." _Baggins would casually say, acting as if he was totally pleased with the remark. And also immersed in the act of cutting his steak. "_Being complimented on our cooking is one of the greatest honors a guest can bestow upon us."_

Nori wasn't sure if Thorin was seeing through the act. Probably, but the way he scowled meant he was pissed off anyway.

Tough break. If Bilbo Baggins was going to weaponize culture shock, Nori would damn well enjoy every single moment of it.

_"I noticed there were a lot of flowers outside. Very… delicate. I assume you tend to them yourself? I imagine they take up most of your time."_ Which was to say, I suppose you're also a gardener in addition to a grocer.

_"Oh, I'd love to, but I simply haven't the time for them all!" _And bless the lad, he sounded honestly contrite. "_I usually find I must rely on dear old Hobson Gamgee from down the street. Wonderful fellow. Has the best green thumb I've ever encountered."_

_"I am certain he does."_

That was a lousy topic closer, Nori thought. Thorin could have easily bent that statement around and made a quip about Bilbo Baggins starting a project that was beyond him and having to rely on the pity of the neighbors.

Mahal, if you're going to get into double-speak, at least do it decently! This was cringe-worthy! Literally! Everyone at the table other than Gandalf and Thorin himself had cringed at least once. And Dwalin kept wincing every time those two spoke to each other, if it could even be called that. And had even whimpered that one time, though no one other than him seemed to take notice. Blast the guardsman for taking the seat right next to him. Bastard just wouldn't let go of the past and kept insisting he, Nori, should be kept an eye on.

Dwalin wasn't fit to keep an eye on _himself_ with the state he was in.

And lo and behold, Fili and Kili seemed to find the sight of their uncle getting verbally trounced absolutely hilarious. Their attempt at hiding their amusement beyond pints of ale (Mahal, the _ale_) were half-arsed at best, but Thorin was too absorbed in his ongoing, self-engineered aggravation to notice anything.

Nori wondered when the world had gone wrong to the point where he, a crook, seemed to have more loyalty towards their would-be king than the man's own nephews.

And he wondered why Thorin was so easy to rile up, and why he came in looking to make himself feel better at another's expense in the first place. The only answer Nori could think of was that he was already burdened with a foul mood. A mood so foul that it could only mean the trips to the councll of lords in the North had resulted in failure. It would explain why he would linger on the doorway for so long. If Dain had refused to help them, Thorin probably wouldn't be eager to share that bit of news.

Nori really hoped he was wrong. But he was willing to bet his hair style he wasn't. And he was good at gambling, because he always cheated.

The feast continued on in that fashion for a while, until nearly every plate and tray was empty or filled with scraps. Bilbo was talking to Gandalf, the wizard having sat at his left the whole time, when Ori hesitantly cut in. "Excuse me."

Bilbo Baggins turned his entire attention towards the blond dwarf. "Yes?"

"I'm sorry to interrupt, but what should I do with my plate?"

Nori wanted to sigh. Good old Ori. Always had too many manners.

Before Bilbo could answer (probably with something along the lines that he'll take care of it because he's the host after all), Fili stood up from across the table. "Toss it here!"

Nori knew that eye gleam and that grin.

But surprise of all surprises, Ori looked at Bilbo for permission first. From the corner of his eye, Nori saw Thorin straighten at seeing the Hobbit's authority so blatantly recognized as superior to that of the Heir Under the Mountain.

Bilbo Baggins smiled indulgently and leaned back in his armchair, gesturing that he go ahead.

One plate toss led to another, then the other dwarves began to pound the ends of their forks and knives against the table, and despite all the strained quips during the feast, the overall experience had been good and merry, so it wasn't too long before plates were flying and dwarves were singing.

Blunt the knives bend the forks!  
>Smash the bottles and burn the corks!<br>Chip the glasses and crack the plates!  
>That's what Bilbo Baggins hates -<p>

Only he didn't. The hobbit shook his head with the air of someone amused at a group of overexcited children and quaintly finished his ale.

Cut the cloth tread on the fat!  
>Leave the bones on the bedroom mat!<br>Pour the milk on the pantry floor!  
>Splash the wine on every door!<p>

But of course they did none of those things, instead gathering up the tableware in tall piles, each with a bottle or ale mug on top. Nori was participating in the whole thing, but still had a free eye to glance at Bilbo from time to time.

What he saw almost made him stumble and cause a horrible disaster. There, right in front of Bilbo Baggins, were all the best plates neatly stacked on top of one another.

Dump the crocks in a boiling bowl;  
>Pound them up with a thumping pole;<br>And when you've finished, if they are whole,  
>Send them down the hall to roll!<p>

Dori, totally caught up in the process that only Thorin and Gandalf had stayed out of (the hobbit notwithstanding) reached out to grab one of the plates that their host had surreptitiously snatched out of the air at whatever point.

That's what Bilbo Baggins hates!

A hobbit's hand came down in a hammer fist upon the searching hand of the dwarf with surprising force. Dori's palm made a muffled splat against the wood, and the noise suddenly halted the antics of everyone. Utterly unperturbed by being the center of attention, Bilbo Baggins sent the strongest dwarf in the company a very sweet smile. "This is my late mother's china, and I am very fond of it, Master Dwarf." He uncoiled his fist and let his palm rest on the far end of the steak knife. The steak knife that had gone between Dori's fingers and into the tough wood below. "I may be convinced to let you include them in your merrymaking, but if you put even a scratch on them I will not be held responsible if any of you end up smothered in your sleep tonight."

Beside Nori, Dwalin made a noise resembling a wounded puppy.

Fili and Kili both gaped, piles of dishware still held aloft in both hands.

"Although I suppose that friendly warning could easily turn irrelevant if you decided it suited you better to seek lodgings at the inn instead." The hobbit heaved at the knife a few times to pull it out (mercy, had it gone so far in?) and stood smoothly. His armchair slid back to allow him easy movement. And it _must_ have moved on its own, because the short creature couldn't have pushed it back, at least not that easily. "Not that I would suggest or desire it. After all, all of you whom I welcomed into my home tonight have been excellent company."

Nori blinked, eyes flicking from Dori's pale and stunned face to the serene visage of the curly-haired halfling. With that, he'd essentially excluded Thorin from his statement of goodwill because he _hadn't_ welcomed the dwarf inside. The King had invited himself in.

Given Thorin's barely concealed anger, he had caught the jab as well.

"Besides!" The hobbit scooped up his prized plates in a single hand, smiling at them all (except Thorin). "I need these to bring in the desert!"

Oh, he was _good_.

"-. .-"

Desert (tarts, apple pies and pastries of at least five different kinds) came and went with surprisingly little fuss, as did the discussion that everyone had been waiting for, though it did kill whatever mood was left after the sweets. Thorin had gotten all the lords together, but none had answered his call, not even his cousin Dain Ironfoot, which meant that their company was all that they had to go reclaim the Lonely Mountain.

13 dwarves.

Well, 13 dwarves, a wizard and a Hobbit, assuming he was going to agree to come despite Thorin's, ahem, handling of him.

Right. Nori wasn't going to bet his starfish hair against those odds, no sir.

The mood was somewhat lifted when Gandalf produced the map of the lonely mountain and revealed the existence of the secret door, which the Durin Line knew of and could use to evacuate in case of emergency. After that the talk turned into multiple isolated conversations, with the occasional point that everyone paid attention to. Like the time frame they were willing to set for themselves (one or two years, but extendable) and whether or not Gandalf had any experience with dragons (he didn't).

Through it all, even when everyone crowded around the map as well as they could, with gandlaf ending up right next to Thorin, Bilbo Baggins sat in his armchair, sipping at a cup of tea and reading through the contract that Balin had finally handed over at Thorin's order. Just the usual: summary of out-of-pocket expenses, time required, remuneration, funeral arrangements, so forth.

Ha! Just the usual indeed.

Nori had been keeping one eye on Bilbo and didn't miss the rising eyebrows and bemused shakes of the head. The Hobbit seemed quite immersed in his reading, and Nori found himself truly curious to see how much he would find unacceptable in it. The thief himself had caught a couple of things in the fine print that didn't sit well with him, and had haggled with Balin until he got the terms he wanted.

The discussion on Thorin's end of the table died down eventually, and it was just in time to see Bilbo Baggins frown, though the half-smile never really left his face, even as his eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"Oh, up to but not exceeding one fourteenth total profit if any. Seems fair." Then he snickered. "Present company shall not be liable for injuries including but not limited to laceration, evisceration... incineration?"

"Yeah!" Bofur enthused. "Think furnace, with wings!" Bilbo only seemed to find it funny. "He'll melt the flesh off your bones in the blink of an eye! Flash of light, searing pain, then poof, you're nothing more than a pile of ash."

"Yes, thank you Bofur," Bilbo told him easily. "Very helpful. Your flippancy in the face of my potential death is endearing."

"I thought so too!" Gloin cut in. Nori had almost forgotten about him. He'd been among the most silent ones during the whole evening.

Bilbo hummed and lowered his eyes to the mile-long contract again. "You might as well have added immolation and combustion to the list. And why not, decapitation, impaling, death by orc ambush." Nori's eyes flickered over to Thorin whose expression began to close off even more than it already was. "That's what they are, aren't they? Throat cutters. There'd be dozens of them out there after all. The low lands are crawling with them. They strike, in the wee small hours, when everyone's asleep. Quick and quiet, no screams. Just lots of blood."

"You think that's funny?" Thorin cut in, and yes, he had raised his voice. "You think a night raid by orcs is a joke?"

Bilbo glanced up and Nori felt a shiver go down his spine even though those green irises weren't aimed at him. "I didn't say _that_."

"No you didn't," the dwarf king bit out, settling back into his chair as if it pained him to relax. "You know nothing of the world."

Gandalf sat up in his seat and all the dwarves standing or sitting close to that end of the table gasped or yelped and sprung away as if burned. Nori would have paid more attention to Thorin's reaction to that if his eyes weren't riveted on something else. The room to Thorin's back suddenly went dark, as if a cloud of ash had sprung from nowhere. Then it looked more like ink.

Even with the candles still burning, it was like a veil of darkness fell, leaving only the window, skewed and half-covered by the curtains. The moonlight was pale but the lantern outside made up for it. Half-covered as it was, it looked like the glaring eye of a giant resting its face on its side.

Shocked by the outburst of his dwarves, at the horrified looks they sent to the wall behind him, Thorin cautiously twisted as well as he could to look over his shoulder. It was just in time for the fire in the hearth to flare. The hearth looked like a mouth twisted into the most hideous rictus. One about to spit flame all over them.

Thorin cursed in Khuzdul and jumped at the sight of a monster leering and preparing to eat him, or would have if his chair could move, but it didn't. The dwarf king grunted in surprise, then tried to push himself away, but failed. One arm became two and he tried to heave himself, but when his efforts proved to be vain his chair suddenly moved further in, crushing his chest against the edge of the table.

On the other side, Bilbo Baggins moved to the next fold of the scroll, ignoring the alarmed and helplessly angry struggles of his unwelcome guest. "Burglar acknowledges and agrees that each item of the Company's valuables, goods, money or merchandise which he recovers from the Lonely Mountain during the term of his engagement with the Company, shall remain the Property of the Company at all times, and in all respects, without limitation."

His voice caused a hush to fall over the room, and the growing darkness seemed to strain against his every word.

"Furthermore, the company shall retain any and all Recovered Goods until such a time as a full and final reckoning can be made, from which the Total Profits can then be established. Then, and only then, will the Burglar's fourteenth share be calculated and decided." Bilbo tapped his fingers against the paper a couple of times. "So, I'm not actually entitled to _any_ part of the treasure. Just whatever _gold_ you lot think I'll be owed at the end of it."

Nori internally acknowledged the point as Balin quietly sighed.

"You know, this is actually a hilarious term, all told," Bilbo said randomly, cutting off whatever anyone was about to say. "It means I won't get to claim any actual item or gem from there. Did you even bother learning anything of us hobbits?" Bilbo asked Balin that, not Thorin. He seemed to enjoy ignoring the seething king, to whom the fiery maw seemed to be getting ever closer. "Even if we _weren't_ simple folk that care not for gold or riches, I'm already the richest Hobbit there is you know."

That caused another round of gapes, and even Thorin paused in his ongoing attempts to push himself from the table.

Bilbo shared an amused look with a calmly smoking Gandalf and crossed his legs, then returned his attention to the contract. "Confidentiality is of utmost importance and must be strictly maintained at all times. During the course of his employment with the Company, Burglar will hear, see, learn, apprehend, comprehend, and, in short, gain knowledge of particular facts, ideas, plans, strategies, theories, geography, cartography, iconography, means, tactics and/or policies, whether actual, tangible, conceptual, historical or fanciful. Burglar undertakes and agrees to maintain this knowledge in utmost secrecy and confidentiality, and to neither divulge nor make known said knowledge by any means, including but not limited to speech, writing, demonstration, re-enactment, mime, or storage and retrieval within means or apparatus currently known or unknown or as yet unthought of."

Bilbo let that sink in.

"So, technically, I won't be allowed to speak or write about _anything_ on the journey. Freedom of speech is not a right among dwarves?" Bilbo shook his head, though he didn't look at anyone. "Terrible society you people live in."

"Now, laddie, that's not-"

"Oh look!" Bilbo cut Balin off. "I _love_ this one: Burglar acknowledges that monetary damages alone will be adequate compensation for a breach of this contract by the Company. So you can toss me to the wolves and it'll be fine as long as you dump some gold or silver coins in my lap. Wonderful insurance I must say."

Okay, the contract really did start to sound a bit odd if you take into account that the Burglar isn't a dwarf. And even then…

"And my, what a clever fine print we have." Bilbo shifted in his seat, took a sip from his tea and continued. "Disputes arising between the Contract Parties shall be heard and judged by an arbitrator of the Company's choosing – no mention of a neutral party. Fills me with utmost confidence."

The darkness behind Thorin, who was trembling with rage at being forced to stay immobile, began to creep further. It licked at his elbows and made the dwarf king freeze.

And then Bilbo dropped all pretense of being amused by anything. "… and all pleas shall be pleaded, shrewed, defended, answered, debated and judged in the _**Dwarvish Tongue**_." The fire in the hellmouth flared a second time and the light in the lantern outside the window went out for a moment, making it seem as if the monster had blinked at them.

Nori could _feel_ the heat from the hearth all the way across the room. He could only wonder how it felt against Thorin. The king was fortunate that his chair had a backrest.

The Hobbit slowly held the contract away and dumped it on the floor beside him with undisguised contempt. The moment it hit the rug, the fire in the mouth of the monster surged and crackled like a whip. Sparks were kicked up, some landing on Thorin's sleeves and in his hair.

Normally, the dwarves would have charged the perceived threat to their king by now, at least the one they thought they could handle, namely the hobbit. But it was always Balin or Dwalin that called such a charge. And the former was a bit far away, and Dwalin had shrunk back and was looking wildly around, as if he thought the furniture would come alive and attack him.

"Umm… Mister Baggins?" Kili hedged plaintively, looking well and truly worried. "Please don't let the house eat our uncle."

"We still need him, you see." Fili was somewhat more composed. Somewhat.

"Hmmm…" Bilbo was glaring at the dwarf king now.

Then he suddenly pushed himself away and everyone started, thinking he would topple over and fall.

Two bare feet snagged on the underside of the table edge, leaving the armchair and hobbit teetering backwards but surprisingly steady on just two feet, despite the precarious position. Bilbo reached up, just in time to catch a jar of honey that had come flying all the way from the kitchen.

A slight tug made his large armchair crash back on all four feet. The hobbit proceeded to replenish his tea from the kettle and uncapped his honey jar. Then he gingerly added some to his tea and stirred, slowly, his glare never leaving Thorin, who was looking thunderous but no less helpless, stuck in place as he was.

After a few minutes, Bilbo brought the cup to his mouth.

A beat.

The darkness in Thorin's half of the room shuddered.

Bilbo took a deep breath, then released it and took another sip of his honey tea.

The darkness retreated nearly all the way to the wall, but the window still glared and the hell mouth still blazed.

The third sip finally, finally made the apparition disappear, slowly but surely, and Bilbo Baggins slumped in his chair with heavy, weary sigh.

The dwarves let out a collective breath. Both those who were standing and those that hadn't managed to leave their stools when Bag End got angry. Thorin visibly relaxed, though not all the way, and he was well past the point where he could pretend he'd been completely free of fear.

The King Under the Mountain tried to push away from the table, but he failed still.

"You know," Bilbo stared at his tea as he stirred it with his spoon. "You are dwarves and I'm a hobbit, so because of the entire culture shock thing some allowances could be made. So despite that there have been some things not altogether _proper_ that I have had to cope with this night, I tried to keep an open mind when mud was dragged all across my home." The hobbit drunk all the tea, though he didn't rush. "When every new guest made enough noise to make my ears ring, I took heart in the fact that it meant they were in a good mood."

As he talked, the other dwarves returned to their chairs and kept their eyes down, not looking at either of the two opposing parties.

"But in the end I still ended up making one false assumption." Setting the empty cup and tray on the table, the Master of the House stood from his armchair, which obligingly scuttled back a couple of feet. "Pleasantly surprised as I was by the cheer of these 12 fellows around us, I mistakenly thought their merry and, in some cases, cultured and polite manner was a reflection of the one they had sworn to follow. The _great leader _they had joined on this grand quest to reclaim their homeland, and slay a dragon. I _assumed_," Bilbo propped both palms on the table, "That the positive impression they left on me was a reflection of _you_." The hobbit pushed himself away and gave Thorin a look of utmost contempt. "Clearly, I was mistaken."

Thorin looked thunderous, itching to stand up and do and say Mahal knew what, but Nori and everyone else never got to know what it would be.

The entire room went dark as if Gandalf had just gone into one of his famous fits.

And Bilbo Baggins was glaring at the dwarf sequestered to the chair across the table from him. "You have the gall to show yourself here and treat me with utter derision in my own _house_. You barely acknowledge me when I open the door and proceed to insult me at every turn without past grievances existing between us! You presume to think yourself my better even though your amazing ability to get lost _twice_ on a 2-mile road is the absolute least of your issues!"

The fire in the hearth almost exploded and a wave of heat wafted over everyone gathered in the dining room. Dwalin made a strangled noise, barely drowned by the yelps of the princes and Bombur.

"I would have been willing to overlook it all," Bilbo said lowly. "After all, you came here burdened by the knowledge you would have to share the bad news with the rest of your fellows. That the rest of your kin had turned their backs on you. That _is_ why you lingered outside for so long, despite having come through the rain, wasn't it? Because you didn't know how to break the bad news. I was ready to bear your attitude, even though it is the mark of a lesser man."

Nori was sure someone or Thorin himself would have snapped something back by now, but he doubted he was the only one who felt like too much air was pressing on his mouth and nose and throat.

"But this!" Bilbo waved at the discarded contract in disgust. "This so-called contract is nothing but a deliberate, _premeditated_ insult to my intelligence. Because, clearly, insulting my appearance and my presumed occupation was not enough. And to _think_ you seethe when Men sneer down their noses at you. I can't imagine why, since the moment you found someone smaller you proceeded to do the exact same thing."

Without any notice, the darkness lifted.

But Bilbo Baggins had one last thing to say. "Maybe you missed it in all the excitement, but I am not your _subject_, Thorin Oakenshield, and you are not my king."

Silence.

"And I will travel nowhere with hypocrites, no matter their station."

The air pressure choking them dispersed, making all but the now nearly blank-faced king buckle and sigh in relief.

"Now if you'll excuse me," Nori did a double take at how quickly the hobbit once again assumed his unbothered air. "I will turn in. I must usher in the dawn tomorrow. Gandalf, a word in private if you don't mind?"

Without further ado, Bilbo Baggins strode out of the room.

Tick.

Tock.

Tick-tock went the clock.

Gandalf heaved himself from his chair and smoothed out his robes. "Well," he said bemusedly, subjecting the company to a cursory gaze. "That could have gone better." And without another word, the wizard followed the landlord out.


	3. The Shire-3: Shire Dawn

**A/N:** Didn't get as far as I wanted because it was getting long. Still, here it is. I hope it measures up to your expectations.

There is one song in this chapter, you'll know when it starts.

So go to YouTube and search Beltaine: Sunrise and you should find it right at the top of the list.

* * *

><p><strong>The Shire – 3: Shire Dawn<strong>

"-. .-"

Even though most dwarves did it all the time, there was only one type of situation when Balin, Son of Fundin, could be caught snorting like a boar, and that was when he was abruptly woken up from sleep for whatever reason. He didn't even have to be in a deep, snore-filled sleep either. A light doze would do. Just startle him by making physical contact and poof, there he goes.

Which had just happened.

Or not, his sluggish mind told him. He'd woken up by himself when he was about to slip off the edge of the table he'd fallen asleep at. The physical contact with another living being had come right after, and prevented him from face-planting into that surprisingly comfortable-looking carpet.

Maybe he should have brought an armchair instead of a normal seat when he got settled in front of the stationery in Bag End's main sitting room. Surely, the home would have helped move it if he'd asked nicely enough.

Blinking his sleepiness away, the white-haired dwarf was dimly aware of being pushed back into a semblance of balance. There was also something odd about his right hand, and when he looked at it he understood why. He was still holding the quill in it, though it wasn't really an accurate assessment. The only reason he hadn't dropped it was because another hand had taken a hold of his and maintained the grip when it had slipped past the edge of the table.

The dwarf gave himself a shake.

"Easy there, Master Balin," Bilbo Baggins voiced from right behind him. The named dwarf finally noticed the feel of the hobbit's other hand on his shoulder, keeping him steady. "We wouldn't want your diligent work to be ruined by accidentally spilling the ink pot."

Balin craned his neck to look at the hobbit's face, then followed his gaze back to the table, to the left, where his left hand was just a hair's breath away from the item in question, which was teetering dangerously on the edge of the folded part of the contract he'd been rewriting.

The final remnants of sleep departed, allowing the dwarf to remember how he'd come to be in that position. There wasn't much to recall really. After the disastrous end to the first reading of the contract they'd given the hobbit, Gandalf had followed him out as requested. Thorin thought that meant he could finally pull away from the table, but the chair still didn't budge. Kili and Fili got up to help, and when their collaborative efforts failed to move the chair, Dori was called, then Oin and Gloin.

Still no luck.

Until Dwalin rolled his eyes, got up and made his way over, shoving Fili and Oin out of the way.

The instant he grabbed the arm of the chair and, along with the others there, pulled with all his might, it flipped backwards as if there was nothing holding it in place at all.

Balin _knew_ Thorin would deny shrieking in fright to the end of his days.

The whole scene had concluded with a pile of dwarves groaning in pain from underneath or above the piece of furniture, which was when Balin approached, looked down at his King and wryly said he'd get on with writing a new draft of the contract, "just in case, aye laddie?"

He'd proceeded to do just that, paying only the barest smidgen of attention to everything else happening around him after he got everything ready for the new draft of the contract to be written. He would have even used his own supplies, but the moment he set the parchment on the desk, the drawer pulled out on its own to reveal a full set of goose feather quills, as well as a swan feather quill for larger lettering.

And three different inkpots, in blue, red and green.

Balin remembered sitting down and peering at the contents of the drawer for a good minute. If his assumption was correct that that wasn't even the main set of writing tools in the house, he could probably stamp "scholar" on Bilbo Baggins in addition to cook, gardener, musician and aristocrat (insofar as the Shire even _had_ aristocracy).

Suddenly, the term "gentlehobbit" began to make a lot more sense.

He was debating "wizard" but wasn't sure if this "living home" business wasn't something all hobbits had going.

And wasn't that a scary (and amazing) thought?

Balin didn't remember falling asleep, but he suspected it happened because of how much and well he'd eaten and drunk that evening. Even his recollections of the stilted and whispered conversation (growling session really) between Thorin and Dwalin was just a faded thing in his head now. He thought Fili and Kili had tried to smooth things over, but they totally failed because they were still enamored with their host. So their "explanations" as to where things went wrong ended up as "explanations" of what _Thorin_ did wrong.

And they sung of the hobbit's praises, because _Mahal_, the _juggling_! And the food! And the _knives!_

And the _juggling_!

Alas, Balin became totally immersed in the task of rewriting that document and didn't pay more attention. Then he fell asleep at some point and, now, there he was, being held up by a Hobbit that always (well, mostly) knew what was going on in his home and used that awareness to be the best host possible.

The dwarf really was surprised their host was still so amiable. He thought Bilbo Baggins could have rightfully thrown them out of his home after how the meal concluded. He was no fool, the contract barely figured into the hobbit's aggravation, no matter what he said. It was Thorin that had angered him, and Balin really couldn't ignore the fact that dwarves had gone to war over much lesser slights that the ones Thorin had inflicted, and sometimes for no rightful reason at all.

Balin did sometimes wonder where all the diplomacy and etiquette lessons he gave Thorin ended up. Because, clearly, the king-in-exile had drawn on none of them during that evening.

Bilbo Baggins released his writing hand and walked around Balin and his chair to pluck the inkpot and move it away from the half-finished new contract. "Come, Master Balin, your bedchamber for the night awaits."

Balin hoped that meant he was still considering traveling with them. He didn't say that though. "Apologies, Master Baggins. What time is it, do you reckon?"

"Oh, half an hour before midnight or thereabouts." The desk had been tidied up and the new contract neatly folded. Huh. That was quick. "I will set up a bath for you, like I did for the others, since I know _I_ never go without one after a long time on the road. In the meantime, there is some hot apple cider on the table over there. It should chase away any chill from the rainfall that caught you earlier today, if any."

Balin didn't miss the "long time on the road" part and stared after the hobbit until he was out of the room.

Finally heaving himself up from his seat and stretching, he covered a yawn and trudged over to the small tea table in the corner, where the princes were also indulging in the hot beverage. Their curious but pleased expressions reminded the old dwarf that Fili and Kili never had the drink before, hot or otherwise. Balin himself had only rarely encountered it, but he remembered it well enough to know he liked it.

"I assume the others have turned in?" Balin asked as he settled himself across from them. Ah, it felt good to finally see outsiders use furniture that was the right size. Actually, it was a bit smaller, and wasn't that hilarious?

"Yep!" That was Kili. And he opened his mouth to say something more, but-

"Well, not _everyone_," Fili said. "Dwalin and uncle left a while ago, said they were going to spend the night out and have a 'talk.' Nori left not long after for some reason."

"_Yes_, thank you Fili, I would have gotten there," Kili said mulishly, as though the question had only been directed at him and not the both of them. "_Anyway_, everyone else is in bed. This place has lots of rooms, and everyone went to bed really fast. I think it was the hot bath that did them in. And the _beds_." Kili sighed and slouched in his chair. "Mahal, they're so soft. And the sheets were so _smooth_ and warm. I tried them out." And didn't _he_ sound dreamy. "It felt like getting a hug."

Balin blinked.

"Funny, though," Fili said, absently swishing his glass of steaming cider. "When we mentioned that, Dwalin went from angry red to pale yellow in like, a second. Then he grabbed uncle and dragged him out the door as if wargs were on their tail, yelling something about one last 'guy's night out.' I could have _sworn_ they were going to sleep here like the rest of us until that point. It was the strangest thing."

Balin covered his amusement with his glass. "Don't mind them, lads. Dwalin just went to… disabuse your uncle of certain notions before anything more was said and done." The cider burned as it went down, but it felt wonderful. Like a piece of hot coal warming him from the inside. "Although I agree that could have easily been done here instead of going for a walk through fresh mud."

"It was the strangest thing," Kili agreed.

"Yeah, it's not like Mister Bilbo would have kicked them out. Although…" Fili pondered, cider finished. "… the house _did_ almost eat uncle. Maybe he didn't want to incite its wrath twice in the same day."

"Then your uncle's a smart man," Bilbo said as he came through the parlor entrance. "Though he would have been in no real danger here, Bag End would no doubt have made sure he suffered its… displeasure."

"Its displeasure?" Fili looked honestly curious. "How exactly?"

"Oh, you know," Bilbo Baggins waved breezily. "Probably by keeping him stuck inside his room in the morning for a while, tripping him as often as possible, having the bath water go from hot to ice cold with him inside, that sort of thing." The hobbit looked at them seriously. "Please understand, that we hobbits don't hold grudges. The fact you all follow Thorin Oakenshield and you, his nephews, clearly love him means there is probably a really likeable part in there somewhere."

Well, that was mollifying enough, Balin thought.

Bilbo still had something to say though. "But Bag End was really enthusiastic about you dwarves until he arrived, yet it takes any slight against me very personally. Especially deliberate insults. So you see, it's not just that it became upset with rude uninvited guests on my behalf. It's that the leader of your company also ruined its opinion of dwarves. Bag End is feeling really disillusioned right now." He looked at the princes. "It doesn't help that it blames your uncle for Dwalin leaving. It _likes_ Dwalin, even more than it likes you two. Eru knows why."

Ignoring the princes' somewhat crestfallen looks at not being considered the most loveable, Balin winced, though the revelation did explain some of his brother's skittishness.

Unfortunately, Bilbo caught his reaction and addressed him. "That said, I believe Master Dwalin might have been needlessly put on edge by my home's somewhat overbearing treatment of him." The eldest of the 13 dwarves wondered if Bilbo Baggins realized how close to a nervous breakdown Dwalin had actually come that night. "If you could inform me on when and how it would be best to approach him to make amends, I would appreciate it. Perhaps you can advise me on the way to the washroom?"

Balin, having finished his drink, stood and walked with the hobbit, providing the necessary information. Sleep was creeping back in – the drink was working fast – but he got through the bath (_bubble_ bath, shockingly enough) easily, though he noticed the water never did seem to cool down, so he soaked longer than he would have otherwise. Once he was done, he was surprised to find large towels and a comfy enough bath robe waiting to be put on.

Excellent host indeed.

Balin had never paid more than the minimum attention to those stories about apparitions luring travelers into a false sense of security with a good meal and a comfortable rest, only to kill them in their sleep for whatever reason. If Gandalf hadn't been there to vouch for things, Balin would have considered the possibility that he was going through something of the sort.

And there he went, sounding like Dwalin the mistrustful.

When he finally emerged from the steamy washroom, Balin retraced his steps to the parlor, meaning to finish the contract. It had gone dark, though, with the oil lamps turned off, and he found Bilbo Baggins and Gandalf there, sitting across from one another and making smoke rings. Well, if they could even be called smoke rings. Gandalf had a few floating around his head sure enough, making him look fairly sorcerous in the dim light of the hearth on the other side of the room. But that was nothing compared to the floating battleship gliding slowly towards the hobbit.

Bilbo puffed his pipe, and the smoke that came out of it formed into a tumultuous sea surface beneath the ship. Then, a finger tap on the pipe bowl was the cue for the large arms of a kraken to burst through the surface and twine around the doomed boat.

Gandalf frowned exaggeratedly as he beheld the ship being slowly being destroyed and swallowed by the grey depths. "Very violent of you, Bilbo."

"Says the one that was going to ram a ship in my face."

"Naturally," Gandalf puffed another smoke ring, and this one shapeshifted into a large dragon as big as his hat, wherever it was.

Bilbo leaned back in his seat and took a deep breath, then exhaled it, slowly, through his pipe. The smoke came together into a sharply detailed ship that looked as if it was meant to fly in the sky.

Gandalf's eyebrows had raised near his hairline. "The Vingilótë …"

Balin thought it sounded vaguely familiar. He must have come across the word in his early days as a scribe and chronicler.

The ship melted as if the world was zooming in, and then the image was of a Man on the front deck (at least Balin thought it was a man) staring up at the large, angry form of the dragon. He brandished a sword in one hand, and a large spear in the other, then threw the latter.

The dragon was run through the mouth just as it was about to spit fire. The spear was laughably small compared to it (it seemed to Balin like the creature was large enough to crush mountains under its bulk), but the hit must have gone through its brain or spine, because the dragon fell. A dead weight that plummeted through the air, until it burst into simple smoke when it hit the tabletop.

"So you do know the tale," Gandalf murmured, sounding quite impressed.

"Eärendil the Mariner, husband of Elwing, son Tuor and Idril," Bilbo answered. "Eärendil The Blessed, Azrubêl, Bright Star of High Hope, Lord of Arvernien."

Gandalf gazed at the hobbit for a long time, but he had his back to the hearth, so his eyes were only seen when the embers in his pipe flared enough to cast light upon his face. Balin had totally set aside his initial plans. He didn't want to disturb them, but he didn't feel like leaving either, so he just stayed at the door.

But of _course_ the Hobbit knew he was there. "Master Balin," he greeted, getting up. "I will show you to your room if it pleases you."

"My thanks, laddie – I mean master Baggins-"

"Call me whatever you are most comfortable with."

"… fair enough. But I'm afraid I can't go to sleep just yet. I have to finish the contract if we're going to leave in the morning as intended." Then he realized how presumptuous that sounded. "Not that we weren't paying attention to what you said! Stone no, we won't force you into anything of course, and we'll understand if you've been soured to the idea of traveling in our company, but I can assure you Thorin isn't that bad once you get to know him-"

"Master Balin," Bilbo interrupted, taken aback. "You plan to leave _in the morning_?"

Balin blinked, unsure why he'd reacted that way to _that_ specific part of his statement. "Well… yes. That was always the plan."

Bilbo peered at him, as if concerned for his health. "So… you all traveled different paths, and only met _today_ after Eru knows how many days on the road without rest or good food, and you intend to leave immediately…"

"We're hardy folk, master Baggins. Dwarves are made for long treks. It's a benefit of the endurance Mahal created us with."

"… You all _met_ here in the hopes of finding a burglar… and expected that the hobbit, whom none of you even knew beforehand, would be willing to abandon everything he had here so suddenly after just a few hours of getting acquainted with 13 strangers of a different race and culture?" Well, no need to make it sound _that_ absurd, surely. "And you weren't even _planning_ on giving him even a measly _day_ to set his affairs in order?"

Balin grimaced at the utterly stupefied tone of voice. "Well, when you put it like _that_…:"

Bilbo sighed and ducked his head, rubbing his face. "Master Balin… I can assure you that, reasonable contract or no, there is no _way_ you'll be getting a fourteenth member by morning." He lifted his eyes back to meet his. "Call me crazy but I think that any _sane_ person would, I don't know, want to visit the Mayor and the Thain, leave behind a will, talk to people about who will take care of their home and possessions in case they _don't_, in fact, die by evisceration or incineration. Or are you telling me that all 13 of you just suddenly decided to leave on the quest and dropped everything you were doing one day and went out the door, never looking back?"

This time, Balin definitely cringed. Actually, they _had_ all had at least a week to get ready. "I see your point," he admitted. He'd never felt sheepish since before Smaug, but it figured the experience would come from the unlikeliest of sources. "You are right, we were all terribly presumptuous."

"I'm glad we cleared that up," the hobbit said. "Now, you look like you're about to sway on your feet." And without any worry, the hobbit wrapped an arm around him and began to guide him away from the parlor and, thus, away from the contract and writing supplies. "Your guestroom is this way."

Balin never did look back. If he had, he would have seen Gandalf shaking with suppressed laughter hard enough to ruin all the smoke rings floating around him.

"-. .-"

Gandalf was in such a good mood and felt so very relaxed and rested after an extended session of mind-communication with Bilbo's fascinating creation that he didn't feel like sleeping at all that night. He was also quite satisfied at having become the only person privy to Bilbo's plans for the next couple of days, so he decided that a special wizard's touch was in order for what would occur in the near future.

That had been part of the subject of their private discussion after Thorin Oakenshield's rather disastrous first impression. And he was determined to keep the secret under his hat no matter what anyone asked.

Besides, everyone would find out what it was all about by the next day.

So, after everyone in the smial, including Bilbo himself, turned in for the night, the wizard went on his merry way. Bag End opened the door for him but also reached out to touch his mind before he left, "telling" him that it wouldn't mind if he stopped by again soon.

It was so much better than he expected after their initial meeting that Gandalf almost gave into the impulse to stop pretending he was old and frail. Almost.

So he still acted as though his staff was a walking stick he very much needed to move about. It wouldn't do to skip down the lane after all. He had an image to uphold.

Onwards towards Bywater he went.

The wizard could already see the puzzle of Bilbo Baggins coming along, pieced together from Bilbo's own revelations, the hints Gandalf himself picked up on over the past few days, and certain rumors and random tidbits of information that reached him during his travels through Eriador. And he did mean the _entire_ Eriador, not just the area between The Shire and Rivendell.

It made him feel somewhat regretful for not having stopped by any Ranger outpost on his way over, or at any time during the past 10 or so years. If he had, he would surely have been given enough of a reason to visit Bilbo years before and actually become acquainted with him. Instead, he had dropped in unannounced and almost alienated him by putting the fear of the Valar into a new and innocent being that had never been seen on Middle Earth before.

It shamed Gandalf to realize he had behaved just like Saruman did towards any of the "lesser" races, as he called them. The Grey Wizard believed himself to be above such a notion, but his behavior towards Bilbo certainly indicated otherwise. He was glad he had had his actions thrown in his face, even if the retribution _had_ been disproportionate, as Bilbo called it.

Once he was outside Hobbiton, he cast his senses out and, satisfied to realize there was no Hobbit Bounder following him (meaning that the people of the Shire actually trusted him to not cause trouble, he thought with relish), straightened and proceeded to walk normally and leisurely.

It allowed him to reach Bywater in an hour, at which point he reapplied his walking stick-reliant image and made his way to the Bywater Inn, also known as The Green Dragon.

Once there, he went to his cart and gathered up the dusts and concoctions he needed. When he had a reasonably large bag ready, he hoisted the handle over his shoulder and went inside, smiling down at the stable minder on the way.

Only to internally wince when he got in. Not because of the noise (there barely was any, despite the hour), and not because of the ones already in, exactly. It was because the proprietor and bartender, Thomas Cotton, immediately spotted him and greeted him genially –and loudly- by means of "Master Gandalf! Didn't expect you back so soon, but we'll be happy to host you regardless!"

Gandalf wasn't annoyed with him, per se, especially since he _liked_ the man, as he liked all hobbits. But he could have done without Dwalin and Thorin noticing his presence. Huddled at a corner table as they were, and so deeply embroiled in a heated (albeit low-voice) discussion, the wizard was _sure_ he would have managed to make it to his quarters without having to deal with them just yet.

Alas, that was not to be, and if he dwelt on "if onlies" for any length of time he was sure that when he returned to Aman, by whatever means, Nienna would give him this _look_ and…

"Hello Thomas. I could use a set of man-sized rooms if you have any."

"You know we do! We even built a whole building of quarters ever since them Rangers started passing through the Shire more often, so you have several picks. You must have seen it!"

That was one of the things that Gandalf was now certain had something to do with Bilbo. Up until the last time Gandalf had been in The Shire, the Hobbits (save for the Bounders, the Mayor of Michel Delving, the Master of Buckland and the Thain) were totally unaware that they owed much of their peaceful lifestyle to the Rangers that constantly protected their borders from the creatures of the Dark.

And fealty to the _Dúnedain_ chieftain, since he was basically the equivalent to the King of Arnor.

Instead, Hobbits regarded the gloomy, tall Men with suspicion at best, or shunned them at worst.

Yet somehow, things had changed over the past 10 years. And while Bilbo had not told him where he intended to go the next day, the wizard had some ideas, and only one of them was "The Old Forest."

Quickly picking a set of rooms (and bless the hobbit, they'd built the housings next to the main road, so he could go back out the front door instead of having to cross all the way through the back), Gandalf was getting ready to pay the man but he was waved off. "Actually, Master Gandalf, pay is for normal travelers like the dwarves over there and human traders, or whoever. We don't charge the Rangers when they stay, and we're not charging you anything anymore either." Gandalf was glad he wasn't smoking at that moment because he was sure his pipe would have fallen to the floor along with his jaw. Thomas, meanwhile, had begun wiping the counter. "We didn't know before, you see, about them defending the Shire an' all, and your part in it. But we do now. Free lodgings and food is the least we can do."

Gandalf was truly, utterly speechless. It seemed to be turning into a trend, and he'd been certain it was impossible for a trend to be set in a single day. He internally debated asking the Hobbit about how this policy came about, but decided he was better off asking Bilbo instead. "Now, Thomas, I cannot accept this. I am no beleaguered traveler. You should accept fair payment. Save your generosity for those who truly need it."

But Thomas was already pursing his lips and frowning up at him. "Beggin' your pardon, but we can afford it. We've learned to stock up properly since the Fell Winter and never consider we have a surplus unless we have twice the supplies we had then. And we have more than that left over from last year alone. Harvests for everyone in the West Farthing have been twice as bountiful ever since Master Baggins arranged for that caravan of special earth from the elves in the Old Forest." Gandalf would have choked on his drink if he'd been drinking one, not that the absurdly generous hobbit was paying heed. "We get a shipment every six months, and so far it's only taken one sack sprinkled over an acre for crop yields to double. We'll keep getting the earth until the whole Shire is covered, so really, we have a lot to trade and sell. And even with _that_ into account, we've had a growing surplus of food, especially grain and corn, for four years now." Well… that was new. "So while you might not _need_ this service, you're getting it because you sure as spring deserve it Master Gandalf."

The one so named just blinked. Then blinked again. How in _Aman_ was he unaware that the Elves had begun to provide the Shire with what could not have been fewer than several dozen sacks of dirt per shipment?

Wait. Did Thomas just say Bilbo had met and set up a trading agreement with the Elves in the _Old Forest_? "The elves from the _Old Forest_?" He needed the confirmation.

Thomas laughed. "You can imagine our shock when all those boasts that Master Bilbo had made as a faunt, that 'there _are_ elves in the woods around the Shire and I'll prove it,' were proven true."

_There are no Elves in the Old Forest_ was on the tip of Gandalf's tongue, but he didn't say it. Bilbo no doubt had a good reason to maintain the illusion that he never made it farther than the Old Forest, and Gandalf was going to respect that. He'd done wrong by the Hobbit once already and he didn't want to repeat it. "Have you met these elves then?"

"No, unfortunately. They only ever make it to Buckland. The Brandybucks are the ones who bring the caravan further in and distribute it around the Shire. I _did_ see the first two that came by though, to check the land and see if their earth would help any. Only from afar mind you. That was… eight years ago now."

Well wasn't _that_ interesting.

Naturally, Gandalf asked for details, and he got a vague description of two tall, lean and dark-haired people dressed in otherworldly armor. Then he asked for names, and Thomas hesitated, because he'd "never actually met them, you see," and the only reason he even had an answer was because his wife Jasmine heard it from her sister, who heard it from her brother, who'd heard it from his cousin, who'd learned it from his brother-in-law, who'd happened to be close enough to overhear their neighbors talking about it to the Shirriff who'd learned it from his niece-

Gandalf interrupted the bartender before the endless stream of words suffocated him and told him to just give him the names. "As I said, no one's totally sure, but I think they were Ellahir and Elrodan, or something like that."

The grey pilgrim knew the general tendency of gossip to change from one mouth to another. He also knew that, embellishment aside, Hobbits had an uncanny ability to preserve the truth of any rumor. So chances were high that they had not, in fact, misheard the names. Which means that Elladan and Elrohir had deliberately used mixed anagrams, for the sake of their own amusement of a half-arsed attempt at being incognito. Or because Bilbo thought it would be fun, Gandalf was not sure.

Regardless, it did not matter. What mattered was that the sons of Elrond Half-Elven had been to the Shire, because _Bilbo Baggins of the Shire had been to Rivendell __as far back as 8 years ago_.

And Gandalf had _not been informed!_

Oh, just wait until he reached Imladris. He end Elrond were going to have _words_. Gandalf had been to Rivendell twice in the past 8 years and the elf had said nothing, or given even a hint. The nerve of him!

Right. That line of thought would probably leave him fuming, so it was probably unwise to follow it any further. What were they talking about before they got totally sidetracked? Oh yes. "Nevertheless, I cannot simply be a freeloader."

Thomas Cotton squinted at him. It honestly amazed the wizard that he would be so stubborn about _refusing_ gold. Oh, if only Thorin and Dwalin were within hearing distance. Pity, really. "Tell you what," Thomas said slowly. "Free lodgings, and that's not negotiable!" The hobbit shushed him with an abrupt wave of the hand. Shushed him! "And the food and drink is on the house for the first day. Then you'll have to pay for them, but not the room. And that's the best you're getting." The hobbit then turned to another patron, grumbling about how shameful and pathetic his haggling skills must have gotten if he couldn't even manage to persuade travelers they should accept services free of charge.

Gandalf stared at him in something between frustration and wonder. It was as if the hobbit _knew_ he was not going to stay for more than a day, so with this deal he would not be paying anything anyway.

Really, these hobbits!

For lack of a better option, Gandalf turned to leave and forgot he was hoping to avoid the dwarves, so he didn't move fast enough to escape-

"Master Gandalf, sir!"

There never was any rest for the wise.

"Yes, Trevor?" He asked, looking down at Thomas' much younger cousin, who was helping in the inn and was probably well enough along in age to start his time in the Bounders soon. "What is it?"

""S'them dwarves sir," he gestured in their direction. "They said they know you and sent me to ask you to come over, 'cause they have something to talk to you about."

"Asked or told?"

The lad ducked his head in embarrassment. "Told, sir."

"I see," the wizard sent Thorin and Dwalin his most unimpressed look. "Thank you for telling me then." After patting his head (because he _was_ young enough by Hobbit standards for it to not be considered rude), the envoy of the Valar approached the scene of what would doubtlessly be a discussion of no surprises.

Because, truly, there was little that could surprise him for a while, after what he found at the end of Bagshot Row and the astonishing reality he'd been slapped with a minute prior. "Dwalin, Thorin." Yes, it was rather petty to greet _Dwalin_ before the king-in-exile, but he had a good idea of what would come out of the latter's mouth, so he allowed himself that much leeway if nothing else.

"Gandalf," Thorin greeted grumpily, and more tired than angry. So, Gandalf had lived to be surprised after all. "I am surprised to see you here. I thought you would stay behind with the rest of my Company. Or did the Halfling throw you out in revenge for exposing him to my person?"

The Istar beheld the dwarf for a time. "You should keep in mind that Hobbits might find the terms 'halfling' insulting, since they are not _half_ of anything." Thorin bristled somewhat at the rebuke, but said nothing, so Gandalf decided he may as well sit down, since he would not get the excuse of poor manners to just storm out and spare himself the stubbornness of dwarves. "And no, I was not 'thrown out' as you said. Indeed, I was quite cordially asked to stay, since I, at least, made my amends. Something you, perhaps, might consider doing yourself."

"I assume, then, that you believe that the strife I was subjected with in that hobbit-hole was entirely deserved."

Well, _that_ sounded somewhat close to slander. "There was no _strife_ in Bag End, Thorin Oakenshield, save the one _you_ brought in." By that point at least. Gandalf could admit he had caused a fair bit of strife of his own, but it had already been dispersed by the time Thorin arrived, so it was irrelevant to the discussion.

"So I should apologize for the false assumptions that stemmed from your sparse 'description' of this Hobbit," Thorin shot back. Dwalin, Gandalf noticed, was suspiciously focused on the mouth of his ale mug. "You told me we were coming here for a _burglar_, not another wizard!" Thorin hissed. Gandalf appreciated the attempt at keeping his voice low, but the dwarf clearly underestimated the hearing of hobbits.

And he also did not seem to realize that two of the more rowdy patrons at the neighboring tables were, in fact, their tails.

Gandalf was not about to reveal that to him of course. The Istar would feel ever so _terrible_ if he added _another_ crack to Thorin's entire world view so soon after Bilbo left it just short of collapsing in a pile of useless shards. It could make Thorin actually rethink his pre-set opinion of Hobbits, and Valar forbid _that_ ever happen. "I assure you that a _wizard_ Bilbo Baggins is not."

"What was that, then? His house came alive," he growled. "It swallowed _light_, what should I make of that? What else other than magic or witchcraft could cause it?"

"I never said it was not magic."

Thorin growled and abruptly pushed himself away from the table, to lean against the back of his chair. "Wizards," he snarled. "Can you speak in anything other than riddles and roundabout sentences?"

"We can, naturally," Gandalf graciously assured him. "When we believe that we are being asked the correct questions."

Thorin glowered at him but said nothing more.

"Well, feel free to send for me again when you figure out what the right questions are," Gandalf stood from the (surprisingly) normal-sized chair and smoothed out his robe, before nodding at the two grumpy dwarves and (finally) leaving the drinking and eating area of The Green Dragon.

He went to his chosen rooms and found them to be surprisingly cozy instead of sparse. The Hobbits really had put effort into the accommodations instead of throwing something together just so they could say they'd done it and move on. It made the entire "free-of-charge" reality all the more awe-inspiring.

Once he got settled, he spend the time until just before dawn creating fireworks. Hobbits were the only race he ever treated to the sight of fireworks, something that never failed to annoy Saruman ("Such a pointless endeavor, why bother? Or is that the service you offered in exchange for their pipeweed?").

He could have just taken his cart all the way to Bag End and done this there, but he knew what would come later in the day, so this served him better.

Hours later, just before the break of day, he emerged from his quarters. The outside was dark, and the sky could not be seen, nor could the distance beyond 10 feet be made out very well, lantern or no lantern. For the dew and rain of the previous day had lifted as the break of dawn approached, creating a thick layer of fog, like a two story-tall blanket that covered the entire Shire.

Odd. Normally, dawn had to break _first_ and warm the land before this happened.

Setting aside that curiosity to be explored at a later date, Gandalf re-entered The Green Dragon's main building and looked around. There was still quite a bit of movement and while it wasn't rowdy it was still noisy enough. A chagrined Thorin and weary Dwalin were still there, at the same table in the farthest corner. And behind the counter, Thomas looked like he was just about ready to finally turn in and hand over the reins to his wife, Jasmine.

Gandalf was debating re-negotiating the absurdly generous deal with her, but before the landlord was out of sight, a strange, soothing note started to be heard from outside.

It caused two things.

One, it made Gandalf realize he had not shut the door properly.

Two, it made Thomas and every other hobbit in the inn abruptly still and go utterly silent.

And when Thorin and Dwalin both opened their mouths to ask _what_ was going on, the four (so there were _four_, not _two_, but where were their feather hats?) Bounders at the tables nearby jumped to their feet and whirled on them, holding a finger at their lips and saying "Shhhhhhh!"

And shush they did, from pure shock if nothing else.

That had taken about 10 seconds, and the note went on for 50 more. It sounded like a flute, or whistle, Gandlaf wasn't entirely sure. The note was deeper than both, but it was a blowing instrument for certain.

After a minute, the note 'Do' stopped, and everyone seemed to hold their breath. Thorin made to speak again, but both bounders gestured abruptly for him to keep his peace. And just when it seemed like everything had settled, and the dwarves were about to speak, regardless of the consequences, the instrument (a low whistle, it had to be) made itself heard again. The note 'Re' was clear and strong, as if they were right next to the source, and Gandalf had no way to tell which direction the music was even coming _from_.

"Trevor," Thromas breathed. "Go upstairs and open every window you can find that's not in an occupied room. Then come right back. Go!"

"Yes sir!" The lad scampered off.

"The rest of you, don't just stand there!" Thomas shouted laughingly at his customers, even as he rushed to the nearest window, prompting the other hobbits to do the same with theirs. Gandalf stumbled towards the dwarves and around the hobbits. Once he was well out of their path and thoroughly confused, he watched as every window in sight was pulled up as far as it could go even before the second minute ended, despite that it was still totally dark outside.

Then, after another ten seconds came the third minute: Mi.

Then Fa.

So.

La.

Ti.

And Do again.

And when ten seconds passed and nothing more happened, Thomas slowly, almost reverently, made his way to the closest chair and carried it near the window to sit down on. Gandalf noted it was the one facing the direction of Hobbiton.

"Umm… Cousin?" Trevor had returned, but at least _he_ didn't seem to know exactly what he was supposed to do.

Thomas, however, did. "If there's anyone in the Shire that _isn't_ up after that, it's their loss." Turning to look at the younger hobbit, the innkeeper treated the lad to the widest grin ever. "Trevor. Do you know what day it is?"

"Umm… Tuesday?"

Thomas's smile only brightened. "No. Hear that tune? It means it's _pre-adventure day_."

A beat.

What in the world did that even _mean?_

Then the realization, whatever it was, came over the tween like the tide. His stance became ramrod, almost militaristic. _Gleeful_. "I'll be at the party bell in four minutes flat!" Gandalf almost didn't see him exit. He was like a blur without limbs.

"… What… what in blazes is going on?" Thorin finally forced out.

"Hush!" Thomas shot over his shoulder. "Master Baggins is about to play."

"What-?"

Gandalf didn't know what made him do it, but he struck the floor with his staff. A wave of white light that made it only a couple of feet outward caused both dwarves to go mute. And also drew only the barest glances in the hobbits.

How _strange_.

It was just in time, for the tune began precisely a second after that and made Gandalf thankful there was a chair nearby for him to sink in.

_That_ was a tune worth _savoring_.

And he did just that, to the point where the five minutes felt like five hours, and still left him wishing they lasted longer. Even when it ended and only the Party Bell tolled, Gandalf just sat back and listened, until even those faded.

"-. .-"

Bilbo Baggins had offered each of them their own sleeping quarters, but left it up to them to choose if they wanted to sit alone or with others, so Dori requested, as politely as possible, that he and his brothers get a room to themselves. He knew it would frustrate Ori, and he also knew that Nori could very well become annoyed enough to go crash in the parlor, but after that scene with Thorin getting almost… he wasn't even sure _what_ would have happened_, _he wasn't about to let Ori out of his sight, or sleep too far from him. Not in that place.

He would have dragged his brothers off, but with their luck, chances were that _all_ hobbit-holes, _and _The Green Dragon Inn and every other Hobbit establishment could be as alive as this one was.

Besides, as pessimistic as he was, he really believed this hobbit's home would treat them well (and didn't that sound odd?). Besides, the food had been so fine, the drink so good, and don't even get him started on the _tea_, and the _wine_. He actually mourned the illusion of normality of before the contract disaster. He'd _finally_ found a food and drink connoisseur he could relate with in Bilbo Baggins. _There_ was someone who appreciated good manners, someone who knew the value of sophistication.

Steak knife driven in between his fingers aside.

Well, Dori _had_ insulted the gods of sophisticated composure after all, when he made to abuse their host's prized mementos from his late mother.

Nevertheless, Dori really, really mourned the loss of the illusion of normalcy. But it figured something would happen to totally ruin their night, so he wasn't ultimately _too_ surprised that their evening feast ended on a sour note.

Not that the Hobbit let the awkwardness last for long, Mahal bless him. He treated them all to individual baths in fresh hot water and set up their rooms tidily and thoughtfully. If nothing else, Hobbits could be admired for their thoroughness.

Bilbo Baggins had acquiesced with his request for shared quarters easily. In fact, he even had a guest room with three beds in it. Somehow. Dori was starting to believe that bit about hobbits having a fixation with being good hosts. Why _else_ would they build their homes large enough to have guest rooms ready to meet all possible expectations and types of guests? The room right next to theirs was _man-sized_ for Mahal's sake.

By the time Dori finished bathing, Ori had already drifted off. Dori waited for Nori to turn up for as long as it took to polish his earrings and hair beads, oil his hair, braid it, braid his beard, tie the beads in his braids and affix his silver beard case. But Nori didn't come, living down to his expectations (as always). Hopefully Master Baggins would come across him, wherever he'd gone off too, and drag him off to a room of his own, if nothing else.

Dori sprawled over his bed with a snort of disbelief. To think he would actually come to _believe_ that such a small and slight creature could impose his will upon a dwarf, haunted house or no.

Before he knew it, he was asleep.

He was awakened by the strangest sound, like a whistle singing all around him, and he felt totally rested and relaxed. A far cry from how he expected his sleep to be, uneasy at best and troubled at worst. Looking around far less blearily than he expected, he saw the room as it was when he fell under, except for one thing: Ori was standing and looking out the open window at the darkness outside.

So dawn still hadn't broken, yet he felt fully recharged regardless.

The dwarf pushed himself up on his elbows. "Ori. What are you doing?"

"Do you hear that?" His brother asked, just as the note tapered off. "Aww… It's gone already."

Dori shook himself and swung his legs off the side of the bed. "What time is it anyway? Did you even get enough sleep?"

Ori was about to say something, but Dori never got to know _what_ because the whistle tune came again, only on a different note, slightly higher.

And he found he could do nothing but listen to it until it finished, one minute later.

Ori nodded resolutely to himself. "Right then. This demands investigation!"

"Huh?" Dori snapped out of his daze, but too late. Ori had already jumped out the window.

There was a pause.

Wait, what?

Dori jumped to his feet and tripped on the boots he'd left next to the bed last night, falling nose-first all over the other bed. After fumbling with the sheets and putting on his shoes haphazardly, Dori made for the window, only to swear in his mother tongue when he found it to be too narrow for his girth. Curse these smials and their too-tight, low-height windows!

Cursing some more when he almost got stuck pulling himself back in, Dori rushed out the room, running past a bleary-eyed Gloin and a suspiciously alert Bofur (did he _sleep_ with that hat of his on?) on his way to the front door. As soon as he reached said entrance, it swung outward, allowing him free exit.

Alas, Fili and Kili lacked the situational awareness of the house, and so did Dori himself. The crash was particularly groan-inducing, but they were dwarves, so such impacts were a minor inconvenience. In a matter of moments, the elder Ri brother was back on his feet, looking around and internally cursing the thick fog. "Ori!" He shouted, heedless of everyone and everything. "Ori! Answer or so help me I'll-"

"Over here!" Came the answer at last, so Dori made his way in that direction as fast as he could without running. Which was fortunate because if he _had_ broken into a run again, he would no doubt have crashed into or tripped over that bench and the fence on the way to the path circling the hill. Good thing there was a gate to pass through.

Only when he finally saw his brother through the mist did he allow himself to wonder what the others were doing up and about, or even outside the door.

Through it all, a low whistle played 'Ti.' Dori felt as if the sound was coming from everywhere and right next to him, all at once, and the air itself seemed to shiver the longer the tune went on.

"What do you think you were doing-" Dori abruptly stopped when he realized that Ori wasn't even paying attention. It seemed like he didn't even hear him anymore. Concerned, he followed where he was looking, and his eyes only saw black. Only the darkness above the top of the hill that Bag End was built into.

But when 'Do' finally came, Dori didn't have trouble pinpointing the source anymore. Even if he didn't see it, he could now tell it was right at the spot where his brother was looking. The last, seventh minute passed, and just like that the fog began to part, and despite that the moon and starlight barely made it through it, an almost invisible mound made itself seen on top of the Hill, silhouetted against the sky.

The dew glittered on it and the grass around it, like diamonds in the firelight, and glimmered when it _moved_.

It cascaded off the cloak as Bilbo Baggins slowly but smoothly stood, his back turned to them. He faced the east, brought the whistle to his mouth and _played_ for the entirety of The Shire to hear.

The dwarf shivered, and it had nothing to do with the chill. He'd never heard it before, a slow, haunting but uplifting song, but he didn't care to do anything but listen. Listen and feel grateful. For Ori had shown mostly irritation at Dori's fussing for a long time, but now, as they were both standing in the middle of a muddy road with two wooden fences in front and behind, his younger brother was leaning against him. Mahal, it was the best gift he'd been granted in years.

Bilbo Baggins played, dew drops glinting on his brown cloak and curly hair with his every move, and the string of notes resonated all the way into his bones. A set, then another, slightly different but the same. And just as Dori though the opening was about to end, the tune was picked up by a fiddle, the hum washing over them from somewhere both close and far.

Dori would have stiffened if the tune allowed for any sort of worry. As it was, he turned to look for the source, only for his eyes to land on the shape of a hobbit, featureless in the now fading dark of the night. He was sitting on top of the seven-foot-tall streetlantern across the path from Bag End's front gate, like there was nothing odd about that location at all. His hands handled the strings and guided the bow over them as if he'd been born for it, and his bare feet swung idly in the empty space beneath his perch.

Then the whistle came again, joining the violin, and Ori's grip on his arm tightened. Dori turned to see why, and got his answer just as fast. His brother pointed up Bagshot Row, where a third hobbit had come out of nowhere, sitting on the fence surrounding the Bag End front flower garden.

It should have been worrying, but the dwarf found that he didn't mind as much as he should when he finally realized that the lute he was holding had been backing up the flute ever since the very beginning.

The tune changed but still stayed true to itself, swooning but never faltering. Dori looked up at Bilbo Baggins just as the final note of the intro tapered off. It was slow and lingering. Not at all like what the hobbit did right after. Bilbo suddenly, carelessly, tossed his whistle away, sending it soaring through the air above and behind them.

The dwarf almost cried out and would have made to jump for it, even though he didn't know _why_ he was so emotionally invested. His eyes barely registered the path as the whistle flew and looped, though. Dori _would_ have turned on his heel to see where it would land, but he could not tear his eyes away from the sight of the sky beyond their host turning red and orange, and Bilbo Baggins reaching down to pick up a violin of his own.

The sunrays parted the fog and landed on him. The hobbit settled the instrument on his shoulder, breathed in, then out, then in again and _played_.

And so did his kinsmen, the sound coming together, resurgent and harmonious. The song was fast like a stream now, livelier, and with each beat the fog lifted higher, and the rays, orange and lavender, poured forth, streaming over and around the hobbit, like ribbons amidst clouds, until it seemed like he was hallowed by the sun at his front. Colors added to the picture, one after another and another, gold from the sun, and the green of nature mixed with the white of the morning glories scattered throughout every stretch of grass.

Then the whistle finally returned, from right behind the two of them.

Dori voicelessly yelped and spun around, then jumped in front of Ori by reflex when he saw the instrument, and the Hobbit using it, sitting on the fence right behind the two of them. A hobbit that had not been there scant seconds before, but definitely was _now _and didn't seem to care at all that they even existed.

It was as mystifying as it was terrifying, for the tune sounded divine, but with each second more light came down, their sight got clearer and mists parted and dispersed, bringing into view the hobbits, and another, and another and still more. All wearing feather caps of the exact same sort. All with a part in the song. All appearing as though they sprung from the underbrush, or the grass, or the earth itself. All with no attention to spare for them, or for anything other than what they could add to the Song of Sunrise with their fiddles, lutes, whistles and flutes of three different kinds.

Although that wasn't quite true, Dori realized when Ori again pointed at the top of the hill. The Master of Bag End definitely commanded their attention, leading the tune with every stroke of his bow. And the dawn itself seemed to unravel according to his rhythm, the halo around him getting brighter and stronger with every moment. It was a song of awakening that worked nature into it, completely. It was the song of the strangest of hobbits, and 10 of his kinsmen that seemed content to simply _be_ there with him for as long as he was there to guide their music forward.

Dori didn't really know how long he and his brother stood there when Bilbo Baggins finally abandoned the violin – the song never wavering in the least, such was the focus of his fellow players – and picked up a whistle again. Even then, it seemed like they lingered there for hours, just listening and watching.

It surprised him when the bells from far off Bywater melded with the end of the song, eventually replacing it altogether, that when tune finally ended he wished it would just go on. That he didn't mind if their journey was delayed for an hour, or a day, or a week.

Dwarves fancied themselves good musicians, and they _were_. They lived for two centuries on average so they had time to learn an instrument or two, or four.

But _this…_

Dori could only stare, open-mouthed, and shake his head in disbelief. It wasn't just the _music_, but the _imagery_. Mahal knew dwarves were fond of stone and caves, but Dori doubted anyone other than Orcs and their ilk could possibly react poorly to what he'd just watched come to pass.

Ori was going to spend _days_ sketching it all out, he just _knew _it.

After a couple of minutes of just standing there, with his face aimed at the sky and basking in the sun, Bilbo Baggins came back to himself. He put the whistle in a pocket somewhere and hung the fiddle next to his hip with the tied-in strip of cloth. Then he finally turned away from the east and towards the crowd of dwarves in his front yard. Because they were _all_ there. Everyone had come out to see and listen to what was going on.

Wait… dwarves? What about the hobbits?

Dori looked around, growing more and more astonished with each second. They were gone! Had he imagined it? Impossible! He was many things, but delusional was not it!

"Fili, Kili… Thorin and Dwalin left last night…" Dori's attention snapped back to the hobbit standing on the hill high above, or the roof of his home as the case was. "Balin, Oin, Gloin…" His eyes roamed over them all as he counted them out like stray dwarflings. The nerve of him. "Bifur, Bofur, Bombur, Dori, Ori…" He stopped and frowned, then looked around. When he didn't seem to find what he was looking for, he closed his eyes and pressed a finger against his forehead in thought.

Then his eyes snapped open. "Where's Nori? Because he's not inside!"

Dori jerked and looked around for himself. Where _was_ Nori? He should have gone to bed separately last night… unless he _hadn't_… Oh, stone preserve the house of Ri. He'd better not have gone on a stealing spree.

And what in Mahal was wrong with him, thinking in rhymes? It was the hobbit's song, it had to be.

Bilbo Baggins slid down the hill-wall like he'd done it hundreds of times before (which he probably had) and ignored most of the looks that the members of Thorin's Company were sending him.

Then, against all logic, his eyes zoomed unerringly on the streetlantern right across from his front gate. He stayed like that for a few seconds, then his whole expression brightened with the widest, most carefree grin Dori had seen him make yet. "Fortimbras!" He strode down the path, ignoring his houseguests. "Cousin, I know you're there!"

There was nothing for a moment, but then a hobbit somehow… sprung from the tall grass beyond the fence and used a hand to push himself over it in a single leap. It was the one that had played the fiddle from the top of the streetlantern. It had to be. But where _was_ the instrument. Maybe left behind in the spot where he was hiding?

"Fortimbras Took!" Bilbo called brightly, throwing his arms out wide as he reached the slightly taller hobbit, who _didn't_ lack the slight pot belly of his kind. "You old dog, come here!"

The other hobbit rolled his eyes but let Bilbo hug him. He seemed a bit awkward at first, but the other whispered something in his ear and made him laugh. Fortimbras returned the hug then, with all his heart, heedless of the audience. It was endearing really. Enough that it made Dori put an arm around his brother, who didn't protest. Instead, he leaned into the move for once.

Dori suspected he would be grateful for witnessing this "ushering the dawn" for a long while to come.

Bilbo finally pulled away, though he kept his hands on the other's shoulders. "What are you _doing_ here all the way from Tookland at this hour? And why are you still in the Bounders? Shouldn't you be, I don't know, in the middle of steadily assuming the mantle of Thain from your old man?"

Fortimbras Took had curly hair of a darker shade of brown then Bilbo, a round face and brown eyes. He also looked rather sheepish. "Well, you know, there's that _matter_ we're still divided on."

"Ah. Yes… The _Matter_. Old Isumbras is still not convinced how bad an idea that is?"

"Nope," the normal hobbit said flatly. "Figured I'd go away for a while until things cooled down, you know? And the Bounders are as good a pastime as any."

Bilbo laughed, dropping his hands from his relative. "Only you, cousin, would consider patrolling The Shire as a vacation." Then he crossed his arms. "Or I _would_ say that, but I wasn't born yesterday. So tell me, what are the odds that you learned about dwarves coming into the Shire soon after the wizard came by my home? What are the odds that you connected the two occurrences? That you picked up your Bounder chief cap just so you could pull rank and take over the patrols here?"

Fortimbras reached up to tug his two-feather cap lower over his forehead. "Can't I drop by before you leave on another one of your haunts and I have to spend the next few months worrying about whether or not you'll ever be coming back?" Surprisingly, he sounded totally serious. "You _are_ getting ready to leave again, aren't you?" He picked up the cap and waved with it in the direction of Bywater, from where the sound of bells still came. "After all, you just got the Party Bells to ring _without any prior notice_. We both know the only reason that ever happens."

From where he was, Dori could see Bilbo's profile, so he saw the diminishing cheer. "You know I always come by when I do."

"Yes, for an hour or two," was the dry response as the brown-dressed hobbit settled his green cap back on his head. "And then you barely give anyone time to talk to you at the ensuing gathering. Then you go off into the Old Forest and leave us hanging for months and our parties lackluster."

"Now you're just parroting the Clayhangers who were annoyed that I wasn't around to entertain at Lalia's birthday."

"Well it _did_ happen."

"That was one time!"

"Yes, the most recent, and _I_ am the one that has to suffer through their grumbling when they invite themselves over for tea in order to once again push forward _The Matter_."

"Eru, they're your very own Sackville-Bagginses. My condolences."

"How considerate of you," the Bounder deadpanned.

There was a long silence, then both hobbits broke into peals of side-splitting laughter.

Dori could only watch and wonder if he'll ever make sense of that whole conversation.

After a minute, the Hobbits calmed down. "Right!" Bilbo breathed in to steady his lungs. "Since you're here, I seem to have misplaced one of my houseguests. Know anything about that?"

"So he _was_ one of yours after all."

"Because the fact he came out of my house last night was not enough indication of that."

Dori was starting to get worried. Were they talking about Nori?

Fortimbras looked over Bilbo's shoulder to the crowd of dwarves that were shamelessly watching their conversation. The crowd of dwarves in various states of undress.

Then back at Bilbo, pointedly.

Bilbo nodded, getting the message. Whatever it was. "I get your point. Hold just a moment." Then he turned on his heel and walked up his path. The dwarves parted ahead of him like waves upon a cliff as he made his way towards his door, which opened inward as soon as he was within 10 feet of it. He lifted his hand just in time to catch a flying scroll (it settled it, Bag End was surreal), then the right hand caught two more rolls of parchment of similar size and design.

Putting two of them under his arm, he untied the third and let it unfurl. It was roughly the same length as the contract they'd given him the night before. "Master Balin? This calls for you I believe."

Balin, who had been sitting on the bench next to the front gate hedges until that point (and who was also the only dwarf fully dressed, if not armored), got up and went over there to accept the parchment. Dori (who was determined to keep an arm over Ori for as long as his brother let him) finally went back within the front yard as well, pulling Ori along.

Balin had started reading and his eyebrows were already rising higher and higher. "Non-Disclosure Agreement?" Okay, that sounded pretty official. "I, the undersigned, vow never to share, in written, drawn, spoken or sign-based form of communication, any information disclosed to me regarding the Hobbit Organization known as the Bounders." Balin gave Bilbo a baffled but measuring look, if it was even possible. "I, the undersigned, also vow never to disclose any information which should I be informed that hobbits would consider as potentially dangerous towards the security of the inhabitants of The Shire, as applies to the following people, situations and locations."

Dori and Ori hadn't been close enough to crowd around the dwarf, but Fili and Kili had managed to snag the spots at each of his shoulders. "Whoa! There're, like, a hundred entries here!"

"In the event that I break the terms of this contract, I forfeit my beard…" Fili's eyes boggled and stared at the hobbit in shock. "You have contracts made specifically for _dwarves_ just lying around?"

Bilbo shrugged. "Luck favors the prepared."

"Is this really necessary, laddie?"

Bilbo nodded to Balin. "I'm afraid so. Unless you _don't_ want any of your false assumptions about us Hobbits to be dispelled, in which case feel free not to sign it."

Balin looked like he was about to read through the whole thing, but Kili snatched the thing from his grasp and bounced away. "I'll sign it!"

"Kili, get back here!" Fili called after him, following. "I know you don't have a beard _now_ but what about later? Besides, you don't even have ink and quill!" Which was when Bilbo snatched said objects from the air as they came flying out of the house. "Oh. Well, that's fine then!"

Dori was sure Thorin would facepalm if he were present for this.

"Lads!" Balin scolded. "How many times have I told you never to rush into signing anything? Who knows what conditions there are in there!" A beat, then he addressed Bilbo. "No offense, Master Baggins."

"None taken. Especially after last night."

"Who cares!" Kili protested. "It's basically don't talk about Bounders unless you're talking to a hobbit or someone who's signed this agreement too, right Mister Baggins?"

"That's right."

"Well, I believe him! Besides, who's going to ask us about The Shire?"

Dori wanted to ask why Kili was even interested if he thought the topic was so irrelevant. Oh well, this was _Kili_ after all.

After Kili signed the contract with the proffered tools, Fili did the same, then everyone took their turns. Dori signed it mostly because everyone had already done it (which was probably Balin's reason too) and because he thought that maybe these Bounders could help track down his brother before he caused too many problems. Or at least guided them along the Shire faster. Not that he held very high hopes. Nori could be really slippery if he wanted, and it was doubtful that these simple, peaceful folk could get a pin on him if he didn't want them to.

"There! All done I suppose," Balin said with resignation.

"Actually no," Bilbo said blithely. "There's two more where that came from!" And, sure enough, he passed around the other two scrolls.

"_Three?_" Balin asked. Dori thought his voice had gone rather faint. "Why so many?"

Bilbo blinked at him. "What do you mean? One for me, one for you and one for the Thain, obviously."

"… yes, _obviously_," Balin sighed.

After the three non-disclosure agreements were signed, Bilbo tossed two of them back into Bag End and made his way to his cousin, who'd settled himself on the bench that Balin had vacated earlier. It was across the yard path from Dori and Ori. "Here. For whenever you meet your old man again."

Fortimbras checked the long list of signatures at the bottom, nodded in satisfaction and rolled up the scroll, getting to his feet. After he put it in his pocket, he called out. "Rory! Drogo!" Dori jerked in surprise when two hobbits jumped out form… somewhere… and landed on either side of him and his brother without making even the barest sound. The sight of eight dwarves gaping at the occurrence would have been hilarious if the fact that the hobbits had stayed _completely undetected by them_ was not so frightening. "Take Dudo and Odo and bring Bilbo's… guest."

Dori clamped his mouth shut when the hobbits on both his sides bounded off to do as they were told. What in Middle Earth… did they mean that… Had Nori… what had they…

Five minutes later, the four hobbits emerged from the turn that Bagshot Row took at the base of the hill, carrying the completely unconscious form of Nori son of Bori by one limb each. Dori didn't even have it in him to drop his jaw anymore, even when Ori huddled closer and tightened his grip on his nightshirt.

The world had made so much more _sense_ up until the previous day.

The company of dwarves watched the proceedings as one would a funeral march, and the four hobbits would probably have laughed at them if they weren't so busy puffing and sweating from the effort. Still, they managed to carry the starfish-haired dwarf all the way to Bag End, at which point they unceremoniously dropped the dwarf in the middle of the front yard.

The part of Dori's brain that hadn't shut down was glad that the path was made of cobblestone. At last that way Nori wouldn't be _totally _covered in mud after this.

Then again, maybe it would have been better if he _did_ end up that way, the dwarf thought. As it was, his brother looked as though he'd wrestled with a bunch of pigs in the middle of a sty and lost.

Bilbo slipped through his shell-shocked guests and stopped next to the filth-covered spymaster of the Blue Mountains. Just in time for the latter to snort, roll to his side and start snoring.

Loudly.

Dori's face met palm.

A motion mirrored by the Master of Bag End himself. "Was this really _necessary_, cousin?"

Fortimbras was totally unrepentant. "He was spying on you through the window. You know full well we Hobbits don't stand for such nonsense!"

"I _know_," Bilbo groaned and sunk his face in his hands. "But operation 'I Frolicked with the Pigs on My Night Out?' Wasn't that a bit extreme?"

Dori still wasn't sure what he was witnessing. Maybe he was dreaming. Yes, that had to be it, because what was in front of him was impossible.

Wait. Where had the other hobbits disappeared to again? Damn those slippery bastards.

"I don't think so, no," Fortinbras said, waving the issue away.

"Cousin, he's one of my _guests_!"

"No," there was no persuading him otherwise. "He _was_ your guest until he left your house last night. Then he became just a stranger poking his nose where it don't belong."

"You still went too far."

"He won't remember it anyway."

"You shot him with _mind-blankers?_"

"Right in the nose. And don't give me that look, there wasn't much else we could aim for on a dwarf! Look at all that hair on them!"

"Cousin-"

"NOW WAIT JUST A DARN MINUTE!"

The argument was cut apart and Dori blinked, then shook his head and squinted to the side. No, he really hadn't imagined it. Ori, of all people, was the one that finally snapped out of the trance that everyone had fallen into after being faced with a situation that just _did not compute_. "What in Mahal's beard did you do to my brother!?" He yelled again, breaking away from his eldest sibling to run and kneel at the side of the other one.

Bilbo sighed and his shoulders slumped.

"What…" Ori fussed over his brother. Dori realized with a detached air that it was very much how _he_ himself fussed over Ori whenever mood struck. "How rude!" The youngest dwarf then glared up at the hobbit bearing the feathered hat. "Who are you? What are you people?"

The Master of Bag End sighed again and gave a wry smile to the scribe. "You really don't know anything about hobbits do you. You never even heard about Bounders…"

"I did!" Gloin, of all people, piped up. "They're the border patrol right? Only I thought they were mostly for show because the Rangers actually defended the Shire."

"Well, you are correct that that is the image the outside world has of us," Bilbo said. "But you forget that Rangers only defend The Shire from creatures of the dark, like orcs and wargs. If traders or travelers or well enough dressed ruffians decide to stroll into our lands, they can't really do anything. That's where Bounders come in."

"But I thought Shirriffs maintained the order," Ori said from where he was still kneeling next to the snoring Nori.

Dori shook his head in amazement. It figured that the Ori the super-curious scribe would push aside Ori the angry brother at a time like this.

Bilbo chuckled. "_Please_. Three per Farthing? They only have to deal with _Hobbits_, which means they barely have anything to do because we're _Hobbits_. We know what is and what isn't proper. No, the actual peace-keeping falls to the Bounders. Their primary role is to patrol the borders, certainly, but it's not like they can just turn away anyone who looks remotely suspicious. That's basically _everyone_ to us after all. So there's always someone _assigned_ to ensure that strangers, _queer folk _as it were, do not_ disturb the peace."_

Well, at least Bilbo Baggins wasn't going to deny that Hobbits were just as prejudiced as everyone else out there, Dori thought perhaps a touch too harshly. But Mahal damn it, thief or not that was his _brother_ that had been thrown in a pig sty and left there all night!

"So what are you saying, exactly?" Gloin asked, his eyes shifting all around the place as if he was afraid some some horrible beast would jump out and eat him.

Bilbo gave Fortimbras a look, and the latter shrugged and snapped his fingers.

Two hobbits jumped soundlessly from behind Bilbo's flower hedge and landed in a crouch, then stood to flank their leader, their single-feather caps in stark contrast with the Took's two. Three more Bounders jumped out from across Bagshot Row and stood at ease, sitting on the fence or leaning against support posts. And not a second later, the grass covering the hilltop right on both sides of Bag End's canopy was thrown aside like a pair of blankets.

No, wait. They _were_ blankets. Grass blankets that had been concealing four more hobbits. Hobbit _lasses_ to be precise, all with the same hats as the others.

There was the sound of more than one dwarf choking on air. The scene would have qualified, hands-down, as the single, most shocking event in Dori's whole life if not for what happened right afterwards. "Good Bounders of the Shire!" Bilbo called grandly. "May I introduce to you the Dwarves of Thorin Oakenshield's Company." Of _course_ he would even bow with a flourish.

The hobbits and hobitettes waved and called out greetings, and Bilbo took pity on his stupefied guests and moved things along. "Members of Thorin Oakenshield's company!" The shout made half of them jump and all of them get a hold of their senses again, frayed as they were. "May I introduce your Bounder keepers!" And again, he bowed with a flourish, but none of the dwarves had the strength of mind to even wave back.

Not that the hobbits looked all that insulted. They seemed absurdly pleased with themselves because of the reactions they caused, if nothing else. And Bilbo was not fazed in the least. "I'm afraid you'll have to meet the other ten, and the four assigned to Dwalin and Thorin, at a later date."

Dori felt as if a big boulder had fallen on his head.

Bilbo rubbed his chin and turned towards his cousin again. "Wait. Weren't there supposed to be one or two more here? Nori's watchers?"

"They're keeping an eye on the Bywater road a hundred yards from here."

"Ah, that explains it then."

Because, clearly, there was _nothing_ absurd about this entire situation so it was _normal_ and _expected_ for them to speak so casually about this.

"But…" Ori floundered. "But there was never any sign of them! And we've been in the Shire for days!"

Bilbo smiled at the youngest Ri brother. "Well, they wouldn't be doing their job properly if you could spot them, would they?"

Dori noticed from the corner of his eye that the princes were holding each other up.

"Don't feel too bad though," Bilbo tried to reassure them. "We can usually stay out of the sight of even elves." Naturally, the attempt failed.

It was Balin, of course, that asked the pertinent question. "Wait! Did you say… say these are just _half_ of the ones assigned to tail us?"

Bilbo looked at him as if he was surprised he had to ask. "Well of course! We'd _love_ to only assign _one _bounder per stranger, but even us Hobbits have to sleep!"

There was a noise like a squealing teapot, only weaker, and at the end of it Bombur fainted right on the spot. Bofur and Bifur stared down at their brother, then Bifur said something in Khuzdul along the lines of _Clearly, there __**had**__ to be someone in the Ur brothers to match Nori's fainting spell._

Bifur's sarcasm always came at the worst times ever since that axe got stuck in his forehead.

There was an awkward silence, then one of the Hobbit lasses from on top of Bag End couldn't help but say what Dori assumed was probably on the minds of all the hobbits in the area. "Oh, they _are_ hopeless, aren't they?"

Fili and Kili fell on their backsides.


	4. The Shire-4: The Royals that Weren't

**A/N: **I am starting to fear that I'm dragging out the events in the Shire, but I guess I'm still world- and character-building.

The song Bilbo plays in the Bywater Market is **Beltaine: An Astrailhad**

* * *

><p><strong>The Shire – 4: The Royals That Weren't <strong>

"-. .-"

Gloin grumbled under his moustache as he trudged down the road to Bywater. The mud was so thick and fresh that his iron boots sunk half-way to the ankles with every step he took. That alone wasn't the cause for his annoyance though. After all, he wasn't any worse off than his fellow dwarves, and they all were accustomed to nasty terrain. No, it was how the feet of the Halfling walking right next to him didn't sink more than half an inch. And the lad didn't seem likely to slip on the mire any time soon either. The only consolation was that his brown clothes were earthy and scuffed with green from the grass he'd been crawling through the past few days.

"How on earth do you not sink in this slush?" Ah, good old Dori, giving words to his thoughts from where he was walking, on his other side.

"Eh?" the blond hobbit – Rorimac "Rory" Brandybuck – snapped out of his single-minded contemplation of a leaf he was twisting by the stem ever other second. The white goose feather on his green hat gleamed in the morning sun as he turned to look at them. "Well, Mister…"

"Dori, Son of Bori," the dwarf said stiffly. "Brother of Ori and _Nori_, who you left to, what was it? Ah yes, frolick with the pigs on his night out."

Gloin winced. Dori was still angry with that. It probably didn't help that they'd had to leave Nori behind in Bag End to 'sleep off the make-believe alcoholic coma' as their burglar (well, soon-to-be burglar) had put it.

Seeing Dori now, so incensed on the thief/spy's behalf, you wouldn't think that he and Nori never actually got along.

Dori and Ori almost stayed behind as well, but the latter's craving to know more about Hobbits (and write it all down, even though he wouldn't be allowed to share his findings with many people) ultimately won out, and Dori chose to leave Nori to his sleep instead of leaving _Ori_ alone on the road with the Hobbits that did that to their brother. Whatever it was.

When Oin mentioned that he wouldn't be alone, since, you know, every other Dwarf in the company would be going along to Bywater, he was completely ignored.

"Mister Dori then," the Hobbit acknowledged, totally dismissing the implied annoyance of the other dwarf. Gloin didn't know whether or not to admire his brazenness. "'m _sure_ you can guess why I don't sink," he gestured down. "Our feet, see? Good weight distribution. 'Sides, 's'not like us Hobbits're all that heavy t' begin with." He ran his eyes over Dori, then Gloin. "And we ain't wearin' our weight in armor 'n weapons either."

Gloin's eyes traveled forward, past the ranks of dwarves and all the way to the front, where Bilbo Baggins and Fortimbras Took were walking abreast and exchanging friendly barbs. Bending forward, he looked to the left, past Dori, to Drogo Baggins, the third Hobbit that had chosen to accompany them (openly anyhow), and who was ultimately responsible for the large procession traveling down the road ("'Our shift's over, see, so we can do whatever we want. Y'all might's well come along and see cousin Bilbo in action.")

Sure enough, none of them were sinking or slipping in the mud.

Dori still needed to vent his annoyance. "I see. What about Master Baggins then?"

"You called?" Drogo asked cheekily.

"Not you!" The elder Ri snapped.

Gloin rolled his eyes and looked at Bilbo again. "Well, Dori does have a point, Master hobbit. Bilbo Baggins does appear to have normal-sized feet, but he still doesn't sink."

Rory seemed affronted. "Well, I never! Normal-sized feet indeed!" He flicked his fingers and somehow sent the leaf he'd been playing with shooting like a spinning dart. It hit Gloin's nose with a faint sting that was enough to make his head jolt. "I'll have you know that mine are of the perfect size for a hobbit!"

"'Course, if you'd been paying attention…" Drogo drawled from the other side. "You'd've noticed that _Bilbo's_ the odd one out. His feet're damn right _tiny_."

"Oy! That's as bad an insult as you could find!" Rory tossed a pebble at Drogo's head, and the latter glared and responded with a tiny rock to the forehead.

"If he'd minded, he'd have said something the other dozen times I mentioned it! Besides, it's true!"

Gloin disagreed – their Burglar's hairy feet were the perfect size, just like a dwarf's – but he was still rubbing the sting out of his nose so he didn't say anything.

Dori did though. "Why _doesn't_ he have trouble walking in this sludge then?"

Both Hobbits shrugged and said in unison. "It's _Bilbo_."

In a totally unrelated event, a few steps ahead Bombur slipped. He managed to regain his balance with Bifur's help, but he flailed on the path hard enough to send mud flying everywhere. And as fortune would have it, much of it splattered over Gloin. The Dwarf shut his eyes with a grimace, reaching up to rub a hand over his suddenly dirty face (and he'd had such a lovely bath the previous night too, blast it!). When he could see again, he looked down mournfully at his beard, more slimy brown than fiery red at this point. His wife would _flip_ if she saw him.

Grunting, he quickened his pace, passing in front of the three Ur bothers (was Bofur discussing _hats_ with Bilbo's Baggins cousin?), then past his brother Oin and drew level with the Princes, who were just behind the so-called vanguard, composed of two hobbits in the middle and Ori and Balin on either side.

"-till won't go and get some rest, cousin?" Bilbo was asking.

"I'm fine. Besides, you're crazy if you think I'm going to miss whatever you're about to do."

"Well at least put away your hat. Otherwise everyone will think you're, ahem, _escorting_ us."

Fortimbras obliged, and the other two hobbits with them hid their own headwear in their vest pockets. Somehow, the damn hats could collapse into really thin strips. Gloin saw that the Halflings slipped the feathers behind a set of bands lining their outer forearms (to identify them as Bounders to their kin while also showing they were not on duty?). Bands he hadn't noticed previously. Seemed that weaving and _tailoring_ were well cultivated trades in the Shire as well.

Gloin paid attention to the chatter, and half an ear to Fili and Kili, who were looking around and frowning, trying to spot their watchers now that they knew about them. They weren't being very successful. The rare times they did see something, Gloin suspected it was just because the Bounders were deliberately being less sneaky than usual. It was like a game of hide and seek with higher stakes.

Gloin wondered how stealthy Hobbits could be if they were removed from the Shire and did not know every nook and cranny anymore. The dwarf was also fairly sure there were some out-of-sight paths and spots that Bounders had set up all over the Shire to make their jobs easier.

Balin seemed to be scouring the distance and the fields as well. No doubt the old dwarf, their best lookout (and how rare it was for one so old to retain his sharp eyesight), had felt the hit to his pride. Days without spotting his tails. Days! At last he seemed to be doing better than the two princes, now that he knew there _were_ watchers.

Gloin was a banker by trade, or used to be before Smaug sacked Erebor. He had a good mind for numbers and pretty much all other facts, but he didn't deliberately join a conversation without being asked to, unless it was about money and valuables. He listened really well though, so he didn't say much but paid heed to what queries Ori and Balin placed, and what the Hobbits answered with. Fortimbras Took hesitated often, but Bilbo Baggins proved to be surprisingly forthcoming, and his cousin deferred to him every time without any hint of resentment.

Which was somewhat mindboggling because not only was Fortimbras Took the equivalent to a high-ranked military officer, but he was next in line for Thain, the Shire's damn _King_. And no matter what the Hobbits said, the person who acted as high judge and led the Shire military was a King and that was that. Especially since the title was hereditary. He didn't _care_ what the Hobbits said that it was mostly an honorary position, it was a big deal.

And yet the damn Hobbit prince was playing second fiddle to Bilbo Baggins.

Then it hit Gloin and the banker felt really stupid for a second. Bilbo Baggins and Fortimbras Took were _cousins_. Which meant that Bilbo had to have been the son of a first-generation son or daughter of the Thain that preceded Isumbras Took.

Gloin was hard-pressed not to bury his face in his hands. Thorin, _all of them_, had been acting like ruffians in the home of a prince. Why oh _why_ did the whole Living Home thing not clue them in? Especially with how large and well-stocked it was? Forget the food, it had enough rooms to house 13 unexpected guests individually (both normal-sized and bigger, and with rooms to spare), and the Hobbit had provided towels, and he had running hot water!

Even without that, _Mahal_, the hobbit wore embroidered _velvet_ for crying out loud! And he had a dozen hidden _guards!_ Well, okay maybe the Bounders weren't _actually_ Bilbo's royal guard, since they were supposed to tail everyone remotely suspicious, but still! He enlisted them to play a song with him just like that! The sodding military police!

It was a wonder Balin hadn't begun to openly despair over this embarrassment. Dwarves had called blood feuds and wars for less.

As it was, the old, white-haired dwarf was showing every sign of preparing to mimic a boiling cauldron. It was steady and silent, unnoticeable until it spilled over into the fire. Gloin wasn't sure he wanted to be there when Balin finally vented on someone, but he was rather sure it would happen before the day was out, so he had to keep an eye on him and make sure he was there when it happened. Too much entertainment value to miss the fallout.

The red-haired dwarf did his best not to show any of his thoughts on his face, just listening, trying to remember the core of what Ori was writing down in detail (although in shorthand). Learning more about Hobbit culture was mandatory now, not just a flight of fancy.

The exact number of Bounders was never stated (Bilbo bluntly said it was one thing that would stay a secret). But it was sure to be decent if they could spare two watchers per stranger. Also, Bounders seemed to have the right to request free lodgings from any other Hobbits when they needed to sleep after their shift (although, Bilbo said, Hobbits in general never turned down a request for shelter – from other Hobbits at least – so that right was more of a formality really).

When Balin asked what they had meant by "mind blankers" the dwarves were treated to a lecture on mushrooms and the various concoctions that could be made from them, particularly the toxic ones. It seemed that some Hobbits, like the Maggots, specialized in growing all sorts of different kinds, and even had deep tunnels in their smials, where they reproduced cave-like conditions for the rarer ones. The shrooms, and/or their spores, could be used in lots of things, from instant knockout gas and poisons to hallucinogens. The 'mind blankers' were small darts (shot with blowpipes) which were coated with a memory-altering knockout compound that had been discovered by Gerontius "The Old" Took (who'd been Bilbo and Fortimbras' grandfather and, thus, the Shire King equivalent, though it was a wonder that the implications of that _still_ didn't seem to set in with anyone other than Balin).

Bifur and Bofur had drawn close by then, and the former asked (grunted really, with the latter translating from Khuzdul to Westron) why Hobbits bothered with such things, unless they _weren't_ as peaceful and gentle as they painted themselves.

Bilbo had laughed at the insinuation that Hobbits engaged in court-like "politics" and patiently explained that it was impossible for their folk to use the substances against each other, because their race had a special tolerance for Mushrooms and even the most poisonous ones never did more than cause a bit of gas (only when they were eaten raw, and they could be the tastiest when made with the right seasoning). Direct injection of their secretions didn't do much either.

The most commonly used solution was a mild sleeping draught they used in taverns. It was kept in reserve, apparently, in case strangers proved to be mean drunks. If they got surly and violence-prone the tipsier they became, the bartender (and you apparently couldn't become a bartender without serving a few years in the Bounders first) would steadily lace the ale with the draught until the patrons in question fell over unconscious. The stigma gained in the process, of not being able to hold their drink against "mere halflings," was considered punishment for being crass.

A minor one too, Fortimbras Took had said, because Hobbits generally did hold their liquor better than other races, something Gloin had trouble believing.

Actually, Gloin had trouble believing most of that. Sure, there was evidence that all races had some sort of talent. Dwarves themselves were broader and stronger than others, and could light a smokeless fire from anything even remotely flammable, even sopping wet wood. And they could maintain a forge flame at whatever temperature they wanted just by willing hard enough. It was why they were such good craftsmen. The best of spellsmiths could even tap into an inner fire that allowed them to sow their will into their creations when they burned hottest.

So it was, somewhat, feasible that Hobbits had some sort of fae affinity and tolerance to certain things. What he was hearing still seemed too farfetched though, not that he said it. Fili and Kili did, though, to which Fortimbras smiled knowingly and Bilbo said that it was okay. That it was the main reason they were even sharing that information, NDA or no. After all, who would believe a bunch of dwarves if they tried to share all that with outsiders? What were the odds of it not being dismissed as a poor attempt at a prank?

And considering that, Bilbo had asked, were they ever going to try to tell anyone and risk ridicule?

Gloin had almost said that they could if Thorin backed them up… but then he realized that Thorin and Dwalin had not been present for any of the happenings of that morning, and they also had not signed the NDA, so they could _do_ nothing. And the rest of the Company could not just tell them anything because they _had_ signed the non-disclosure agreement, and dwarves took their vows seriously. And even if they did break their word, there was the issue of credibility.

The princes were known for causing mayhem and pranks, so they were out. The others were tinkers, toymakers or mind-addled former fighters. None of very high standing.

That left Balin as the only one whose report might be trusted, and he was unlikely to break the terms of the contract unless the Dwarves decided to go to war with the Shire for whatever mad reason.

No doubt Bilbo Baggins had taken this into account when he offered the NDA, Gloin realized with grudging admiration. Now he had the perfect way to get back at their King for the lack of decorum of the previous night: forcing the company into a situation when they would have to dance around the subject of Hobbit capabilities whenever it came up. And Thorin would have to know better than demanding they ignore the terms of the contract and answer his questions. Because if he did demand that, he would blatantly send out the message that he did not hold himself to the same standard of dwarven honor as his followers.

It was no small thing for a dwarf to give his vow, especially via contract, but it was another matter entirely to respect the vow given by someone else, especially when the one the oath had been made to was a person you disliked. That realization made the red-haired dwarf gaze at the Hobbit's back for a long while. Maybe that was exactly why Bilbo Baggins had done it, to get a measure of Thorin's character.

If it was, Gloin thought, there was no reason to be concerned. Despite the faux pas of the previous night, Thorin's character was far from a strife-sower or simpleton. Maybe there was hope for peace and understanding in their miss-matched company after all.

Bywater could be seen clearly in the distance, now that the fog had lifted completely, and there was more bustle than Gloin expected. "Is today a market day?" He wondered aloud.

Drogo Baggins had swapped places with Rory at some point during their walk and was next to him now. "Nope. Those're Saturdays here in Bywater. Not that the markets're ever empty, heavens no." The hobbit shrugged. "O'course, It's true that today's a lot more active than usual. Makes sense though."

"What does?"

The short and plump man blinked in surprise. "What do you mean? You were there when Bilbo played."

"What does _that_ have to do with anything?"

"What'd'you mean what…" Drogo tilted his head. "Oh… Wait, of _course_ you won't know just from witnessing it once. You were probably too mesmerized to notice."

"Notice?" Fili and Kili piped up in unison. "Notice what?"

"You mean you can't remember anything unusual about the song?" Drogo asked, amused.

"I was a bit too preoccupied with how Hobbits seemed to spring from the ground," Dori grumbled from behind them. Gloin realized that all other conversations had paused. "And stop smirking, lad! It's a wonder you could even play with the others with how the song seemed as if it was coming from everywhere!"

Drogo grinned back at the annoyed dwarf triumphantly. "And _that_ was what I meant. The tune came from everywhere at once, you said. Now tell me, who else d'you think heard the same as you?"

There was a pause, then Bofur's eyes widened. "Ye're sayin' it was heard all the way out here?"

"Oh, not just here," Rory told them from the other side of the group. "The whole Shire heard it. An' I'm pretty sure it made it all the way to Buckland too."

"What's that now?" Bofur asked, sounding unsure if he should believe it. "That's days away!"

"Don't ask me how," Drogo told them. "I got no clue how it works."

"But," Ori's voice almost didn't make it over the noise of their trek. "But you were there! Playing along…"

"On instruments that cousin Bilbo handed out before and after he climbed the hilltop," Rory revealed. "Well, technically he tossed and kicked them straight where he knew we were. What, did you think we carry around violins and lutes all the time? We're _Bounders_, not musicians."

"But… but you were _good_," Kili floundered.

"Actually, I'm terrible!" Drogo said blithely. "Well, I'm pretty decent with a tin whistle I suppose…"

"But… but you were playing the lute this morning!" Ori squeaked.

"Aye I was," Drogo confirmed dreamily. "It was great."

"You're not making sense," Fili huffed. "How can you be terrible but still play so well? Unless hobbits hold themselves to different standards than anyone else…"

"We don't," Drogo said quickly. There went that idea. "It's just… it doesn't _matter_ how bad you are when you play as backup to my cousin."

Bifur growled something in the Dwarven Tongue and Dori rubbed his with a groan. "Mahal save me. Will I ever understand hobbits?

"It's not a Hobbit thing," Rory said casually. "It's just Bilbo."

"You two!" Bilbo called from the front. With some envy, Gloin noted that his green shin-length trousers, white shirt and blue vest were spotless despite the damp and muddy morning. And his unbuttoned forest green coat (again, _velvet_, with golden seams and laces) was just as clean despite it reaching all the way to below the middle of his calves, and instead of being stiff it flowed like water. "Stop annoying my guests."

"Sorry cousin!" Rory seemed to mean it, Drogo clearly didn't.

Which Bilbo noticed. "I can see you're not sorry enough. Just for that, you won't be my backup this time."

"No!" The younger Baggins gasped in horror. "You can't! It was my turn!"

"Ha!" Fortimbras gloated as he accepted the lute. So _that_ was why Bilbo Baggins had carried it along with the fiddle all the way from Bag End.

"No fair!" Drogo whined. He resembled Kili astonishingly much when he did it, even though they looked nothing alike. "He's just as bad at the lute as I am!"

"And you just said it doesn't matter," Rory said not at all helpfully, ignoring the baleful glare he got for that comment

Good old Balin took that chance to ask what Gloin himself and the others, were all wondering about. "Yes, and I'm sure we are all wondering exactly what that even means."

"Thoughts and feelings aren't fully ensconced in your heads, Master Dwarf," Bilbo explained, slowing his pace until he was between the old noble and Gloin. "They are like strands and eddies, swirling about you, or like the sun, a star of blazing fire. Always brushing against those of everyone else in a certain vicinity. The contact between such thoughts is where instinct and odd feelings come from, like, say, when you somehow know you are being watched, or that this or that group of people could be trouble." Well, wasn't _that_ an interesting theory. "With the right tune, I can sync with those thoughts and feelings, and enable them to, in turn, sync with those of everyone else, so long as the people they belong to are of a similar enough mind."

Gloin felt uneasy at what he was hearing… could the hobbit do _more_ than he was saying?

Drogo snorted. "You're being all scholarly again, cousin. We here're simple folk, remember? I bet half o' these louts didn't understand a word you said in the second part."

"Hey!" Kili and Fili yelled.

"I didn't say _which_ half!" Drogo shot back.

Balin shook his head. "He's got you there lads."

"Anyway!" Rory cut in. "What _dear_ cousin means is that he can make people work really well together. Like, say, turn any group of people into an expert band of musicians whenever he plays something."

"Actually, only people I've played at least a few hours' worth of music in the presence of. Granted, music tends to help crowds gain some semblance of orderliness all on its own, but what Drogo described depends on people fully trusting me to lead them well. That they at least _want_ to be of like mind with myself," Bilbo clarified without missing a beat. "So far, that includes only those I have a deep personal bond with."

"Awww," Drogo glomped Bilbo, bringing the whole group to a halt. "I love you too cousin!"

Gloin stared at the surreal scene, exchanged a look with his brother Oin, then proceeded to stare some more. Did that mean that Bilbo Baggins had a deep personal bond with all the Bounders that were watching his house?

The Master of Bag end looked down at the newly acquired armful of hobbit, fondness and wry amusement fighting on his face. "I know you do." He ruffled his honey-colored locks. All the while, Drogo just kept rubbing his cheek into his older cousin's bosom. "But you still can't be my backup."

"Aw bollocks!"

"Language!" Bilbo swatted him on the head, though it didn't make the other hobbit pull away in the least. "Some people here are still underage!"

"Hey!" Kili shouted.

There was an awkward pause.

"Umm…" Fili stared at his brother. "He didn't say _who_…"

Kili blinked, then said some rather startling things in Khuzdul about pigs, horses and buttered toast, prompting Balin to swat him over the back of the head too. "Language!"

"But… but _Baliiinnn_, it's not like they understand any of it!"

Gloin wondered when Dwarves had stopped caring that their sacred language should be guarded from outsiders.

"It's enough that _I_ did," Balin lectured. "Now get back in line before I decide to tell your uncle what your imagination just cooked up."

"No!" Kili yelled in overbearing mock-horror. "You can't! Mister Baggins, you'll protect me won't you?" And he jumped to duck behind the hobbit.

"Hmm…" The hobbit in question tapped his chin with the hand of the arm that was not still wrapped around his clingy younger cousin. "Well, you got my name right so I suppose you _do_ deserve a reward."

"Yes!" Kili then hugged the hobbit from behind, which seemed to sprout a competition with Drogo over who got to hug more of the poor man. _Mahal_, Gloin thought, Kili may not have been of age by Dwarven standards, but wasn't the hobbit, at least, supposed to be an adult?

The banker looked between Bilbo and Fortimbras Took and saw the exact same expression of long suffering on them both.

So it _wasn't_ just him.

What a relief.

But of _course_ that _look_ of mirth and deviousness would creep on their burglar's face as he looked down at his clingy cousin. "Drogo."

"Mmm?"

"You do realize that one of the Bounders keeping an eye on our grand company is Primula, don't you."

It took just a second for the words to sink in, then Drogo sprung away so fast that he smashed into Fili, almost making them both crash into the muddy path. Fili caught his balance with some choice curses, but the Hobbit was too busy straightening his clothes to notice or care. Once he was done, he checked his cuffs one last time then cast a roaming gaze upon their surroundings, peering into the distance to spot signs of their watchers that none of them could perceive. Gloin was fascinated by how _gradually_ those _big_ eyes that all hobbits seemed to have could _narrow_ in focus.

Which was when Fortimbras Took loudly commented from ahead. "Not such a _respectable_ Baggins, are you now?"

"Lay off!" Gloin would have mistaken the way the Drogo's fingers flicked out for a random twitch.

But Fortimbras's hand flew up like a blur and halted with the index and middle fingers extended, a round, shiny white marble caught between them. The older hobbit smirked. "Ten years too young, kid."

Drogo puffed and rolled his eyes. "Oh, go suck air through a reed!"

"-. .-"

Thorin Oakenshield could freely admit that the past 24 hours had not at all proceeded the way he'd expected. And he wasn't just referring to the way he got lost twice on the road. No, it was everything that happened after he knocked on the door, though now he wasn't sure whether to be more affronted at the events in Bilbo Baggin's home or at how Dwalin dragged him out and away only to spend the rest of the night arguing with and relieving hours' worth of stress on him. By relaying, in that ever so blunt manner of his, precisely what had occurred between Dwalin's arrival into the Shire (and eventually Bag End) and Thorin's own.

Gandalf had absconded almost as soon as they got him to sit at their table in the inn, the sly old coot. If the morning actions of the hobbit bartender and other patrons hadn't been what they'd been, Thorin would have given the wizard a piece of his mind. Did he think his quest, his people's plight, was a small joke? Why else would he set up his entire company for such a distasteful prank? He sent them into the lair of such a fickle creature under false information, and he made sure the tensions would be highest by not informing the Halfling (if it even was a Halfling) of anything, even their arrival.

Gandalf had told them that everything had been arranged weeks ago!

And what had gotten into Dwalin? He had been literally drowning his sorrows in ale. What had that Halfling put him through? The warrior had relayed the bare facts, but it was as if Dwalin was hiding some dark secret about what took place within those round walls. And every time Thorin tried to demand an explanation, he would just down another half a mug and sulk, occasionally grunting something at him.

Mahal, he'd trudged over half of Middle Earth seeking to muster his dwarven kin and been turned down, not even with the appropriate amount of deference shown to him. He'd been spitting mad for days on the way back from the Council of Gabilgathol – Belegost to the Elves and Mickleburg to the Men – feeling betrayed and disappointed. The worst was his cousin's refusal, even though he understood Dain's stance. On the one hand, he of all dwarves had the manpower to spare, being the lord of the greatest Dwarven realm that remained. On the other, he was the holder of the chokehold between Rhovanion and Rhun to the east, and those men had ever been servants of the Shadow.

It had been an uneasy trek back from the meeting place, to say the least.

And when he arrived in the Shire he spent four days through peaceful and joyful villages. It felt like a slap in the face that these small creatures had such an easy lifestyle, so _safe_ (not even through any effort of their own, but owed solely to rangers) while his own people had had to spend two hundred years scraping for even the barest necessities until they finally established a relatively decent life in Southern Ered Luin, where Menegroth had once stood.

The four hours spent trudging through pouring rain didn't help any, and when he saw the small, soft creature it was like all his lowest expectations were confirmed on the spot. It felt like that entire situation had been orchestrated to stomp on the last vestiges of his hope that his quest was not completely doomed. Clearly, the Halfling would be a dead weight they would have to drag after them just to break the bad luck of number 13 and have someone lacking in dwarf scent to send into Smaug's lair at the end.

What had he been thinking listening to Gandalf in the first place? They were better off without the Halfling. Better that he didn't feel the urge to come at all. Admittedly, Thorin was (surprised though he was to admit it) regretful that he'd _sought_ to amuse himself at Bilbo Baggins' _expense_, but if the creature was so thin-skinned that he would crumble at the barest implied insult then he was not fit for the journey.

Call him insensitive but after everything he'd been through in life, he didn't bother sparing the feelings of outsiders. He had trouble enough doing it with his own kin, even before they turned their backs on him and his call for aid.

Well, no matter, he would get them back their home even if they didn't lift a finger to help bring about that dream.

Then the evening happened and Thorin, even after a night's reprieve, still felt like he'd fallen down a rabbit hole. And the feeling didn't get any better after what happened in the morning. Stone, that _song_ and the way the hobbits so reverently listened to it. Even Gandalf had…

Thorin had actually forgotten about having been rendered mute until after the bell stopped tolling and he finally could speak again. And only when it _did_ finally happen did he realize that he'd gravitated towards the window closest to the one the innkeeper had sat in front of. The view was stunning, even to him. Sunlight streamed through the clouds, breaking into myriads of colors as it refracted through the mist, and the colors glimmered on the dew of the morning. And with the window facing west-northwest, he was almost behind the sunbeams and could see exactly how they settled over the hills, like parallel seams holding the landscape together.

Then the entire inn cleared out as if by magic. The only people left, other than the two of them, were the two halflings that had shushed him earlier (the nerve, he'd have _words_ with them) and the innkeeper himself (who moved to sit at the window facing south, which gave him a full view of the market square down the hill). Gandalf had exited along with everyone else at some point, when Thorin wasn't paying attention. Not long after, the handful of hobbits that had taken rooms in the floor above thundered down the stairs and ran out the door.

Thorin and Dwalin shared a confused look, and the former was glad when his friend went to ask the Hobbit what had just happened, and what was going on. As far as the King Under the Mountain was concerned, if he had to deal with another hobbit that day it would be too soon.

Dwalin's brief talk with the Innkeeper resulted in their eviction from the establishment. The dwarf King in exile had been so nonplussed that he didn't get around to protesting the rudeness of it all. To just close down the inn, and so abruptly! He was, admittedly, somewhat mollified by the fact that the two hobbits that had lingered inside had been ushered out as well. Only for a short time, though, because he never got around to having _words _with them about how they dared to tell him to shush earlier.

Thorin didn't even remember when they'd disappeared, or where. Then again, with the crowd outside it was easy to slip out of sight.

And to get shoved and bumped around it seemed. Why he'd gone with Gandalf's suggestion to visit the market, he didn't know. Especially after the wizard had steered them so horribly wrong in regards to that volatile Hobbit that was supposed to be their burglar. But he did go to the market, instead of following his initial plan of going with Dwalin back to Bag End to retrieve his errant company and go on their way. He was determined that it would be the last concession he made with the wizard: to look around the market until noon or so, and if his company didn't show up by that time then he could go do whatever he wanted.

Four hours of browsing trinkets, produce and foodstuffs later (Mahal, there were so _many_ types of food too), Thorin had actually finished wrinkling his nose and silently scoffing at the total lack of weapon merchants. Or even a tool stand. Instead, he was actually thinking of buying a couple kegs of ale, the sort that he'd had at the inn during the night. And was a third of the market dedicated solely to mushrooms? And by the Arkenstone, that apothecary was half-stocked with things he'd never even heard of before but which were supposedly meant to be remedies for various things.

Jostling through the crowd (which was growing as more and more halflings came in with various products in wheelbarrows or carts), Thorin was seriously thinking he should buy himself something to eat when it happened.

A ripple of mutters and excited chatter went through the crowd. The crowd which abruptly _stopped_. Automatically turning in the direction of the disturbance, Thorin could only think _Finally!_

There, at the edge of town, high on the hilltop leading to Hobbiton, were his followers. Squinting, the dwarf king also noticed two… no, _four_ hobbits accompanying them. And right in front was the Halfling he still wasn't sure he wanted to see. Good thing his dwarves were there at least. And Thorin had to admit that the reaction of the crowd was gratifying. As impolite as it was to stop and stare, his dwarves really were a sight to see, armed and armored, dwarven steel glinting in the sun. And unlike the humble mien they were forced to wear in the towns of men, now they strode tall and proud-

"It's Mister Bilbo!"

-and imposing- Wait, _what?_ He must've misheard, it had been barely a whisper-

"Ho Mister Bilbo!" A hobbit man shouted, waving excitedly.

And then the crowd erupted in movement again, twice as active. Frantic even. Thorin was jostled once, then twice, then he had to beat a hasty retreat as the Halflings moved about like a whirlwind, shouting things like "Hurry up!" "Set up that Stall already!" and "Mister Bilbo's coming, you wanna be the only one without your products on display when he give his speech?"

Speech? What speech? Who was he to even _give_ a speech?

For the second time that day, Thorin could only wonder what in blazes was going on. When Dwalin finally managed to rejoin him (he'd wandered off earlier), he had no answer. Then the two had to move aside again because "Oy! Sorry but this here's hitching rail, see? How're we supposed to tie our oxen to it with you standing there? Or d'ya wanna get horned? Move move move!"

They were able to get out of the way but Thorin was sure he'd have had to start putting effort into _not_ drawing his sword Deathless if that went on much longer. Fortunately for the annoying Halflings, that was when Gandalf came out from an alley not far from them. The dwarf king would forever deny that the sight of the wizard came as a relief.

With some effort and much pushing, Thorin and Dwalin made their way to the wizard's side. "So these are the creatures you're so enamored with!" He drawled as soon as he was close enough. He waved a hand as grandly as he ever did, encompassing the chaos that had grown ten times worse in the few minutes since Bilbo Baggins had been spotted. "Look at them. They're worse than headless chicke-"

A sharp whistle speared through the air so suddenly that Thorin cringed and shut his eyes. It had been so loud and _shrill _that his ears were left ringing.

Far off and high up, Bilbo Baggins pulled his two fingers out of his mouth (maybe forbidding that whistle should be included in the contract?) and raised an eyebrow at the multitude of his kinsmen, who'd stopped and were al staring at him like deers in the torchlight. Thorin watched in bewilderment as all who'd been trying to step over one another or push their carts ahead of the line (if the word even applied anymore) ducked their heads in embarrassment.

"Now…" Bilbo Baggins' voice carried over them all, even though he barely raised it. "Let's try this again, yes?" That said, he reached out, to his right, and plucked the strings of the lute held aloft by the Halfling accompanying him.

It was like a repeat of the scene in the morning, only with a different instrument. The cadence, fast and rhythmic, washed over and through everyone like the warmth of a furnace after a long trek through the howling blizzard. Then the section completed and picked up again, without breaking stride, five seconds in. Bilbo Baggins stepped away, leaving the lute to be played by his kinsman, and crouched.

A leap carried him several feet upwards, and his jump ended with him standing perfectly upright on the fence bordering the road. Sunlight settled on his form, aged wood gleamed as it moved. The hobbit stepped forward to walk as if he wasn't precariously balanced on something as thin as a fifth of his foot sole. He strode almost on air, brought up a bow to the fiddle strings and music literally began to fly.

Thorin shivered when the notes crashed into him, and he wanted to rebel against the feeling, but he couldn't muster the effort. It was fast but centered, wild and tame at the same time, and so utterly _alive_ that the entirety of Bywater fled his awareness. He was mesmerized by how quickly the bow slid, like a blur in the sunlight, each note perfect.

The hundreds of hobbits stared at the one closest to them, paused, then moved again. In unison. Order without stiffness. Haste without chaos. It was like they were all suddenly part of the same mind, cogs in the same, grand, well-oiled machine. Carts were heaved, beast of burden quartered, stalls were erected as easily and smoothly as water flowed down a creek. Those that had been trying to get past one another now helped each other in their endeavors. Yet they no longer seemed to _walk_. They almost bounced on their bare, hairy feet, as if they were too giddy to stand still because no one was dancing and there _should_ have been some _dancing_.

All the while, a path was opened for the ones that had just arrived, the hobbit playing the lute, his two kinsmen and the dwarves in their wake.

All the while, Bilbo Baggins glided forward on the fence, his backup and the dwarves following several meters behind. His eyes stayed closed the entire time. It would have arrested Thorin's attention up to the end of the song if a new instrument, too low for a lute but still using strings, didn't come from right above.

With a jolt, he whirled around and looked up. One of the hobbits that had stayed in the inn with them up till the closedown was sitting on the edge of the roof. His fingers plucked at the odd object in perfect sync with the others, his grin was wide and brilliant, and his mirth-filled eyes were trained perfectly on the lead singer.

Dwalin grabbed his arm and pointed elsewhere, so he looked, around Gandalf. There, opposite of the first, on the other building, was the second of those hobbits, fiddle poised to start.

What on Middle Earth was going on?

That was when the song lulled, and the beats of a hand drum slipped into place. He didn't bother looking for it. He couldn't hear the direction anyway.

Thorin turned back to the source, in spite of himself. Bilbo Baggins was standing on the nearest fence pole, and the music had changed, though it stayed familiar. Like the hiss of a properly heated blade dunked in cold water, the rhythm slowed, then began to drift up again. Slowly. It was building up to something, even Thorin could tell that much.

That was when the apex came. Bilbo Baggins, instead of digging his heels into his nonexistent platform, instead of standing still to focus on his fiddle, instead of doing anything that made even the slightest nick of _sense_, stepped forward. Stepped on _nothing…_

Stepped on a bench that half a dozen hobbits had grabbed and held aloft length-wise for him to walk on. He cleared it in four steady strides, then there was again nothing, _almost_, but a _rake_, of all things, came out of nowhere, and a _second_ one, then the same bench showed up and he was half-way to the center of the market, pacing along with the song he wove. On and on he went, makeshift path never failing to emerge before him, as if the song he played held him above everyone, as if it pulled him ever higher.

Numbly, the dwarf king noticed that the song did not falter or hit even the slightest false note. Not even once. The only other sounds were those of laughter from the assembled hobbits, especially the ones that kept building the bridge, yet even those seemed to add instead of detract from the spry tune.

Thorin would have understood if the Hobbit stopped in the center of the square. Even if there was a well there, it would have made more sense than him ending up on the opposite edge of the market. But that was where he ultimately headed, where he bent at the knees and leapt for the second time, off the proffered stool under his feet. He made it neatly to the top of the slightly sloped roof of the largest stall there, the one selling bread and pastries.

There he spun on his heel, carrying the uninterrupted song of the violin all the way to the end, joined by two other fiddles and instruments of who knew how many kinds. Thorin couldn't even tell where the sound was coming from anymore. It was like it made itself heard right in his ears, always faster, always grander but ever so perfectly _fit_ for the small folk surrounding him on all sides.

When the end came, it was surprisingly fast, like a bonfire that burned all its fuel in one great eruption, with the way the final glide of the fiddle bow drifted into stillness.

The world seemed to hold its breath. The echoes of the last section still hovered in the air.

Then Bilbo Baggins _finally_ opened his eyes and the entirety of Bywater erupted into cheers and applause.

The realm-less royal did not immediately realize he was gaping. He likely would not have noticed for quite a while, as arrested as he was by the mass of round-bellied halflings that were waving and shouting "Bilbo! Bilbo! Bilbo!" But when Bilbo Baggins's cloak flapped like a cape in the wind and he bowed before his audience, Thorin Oakenshield, son of Thrain, son of Thror, King Under the Mountain, breathed out without even meaning to: "Definitely not a burglar."

Dwalin coughed on Gandalf's other side, but it sounded suspiciously like a laugh. Thorin clamped his mouth shut and only managed a half-hearted glare in his direction, even _after_ he saw his smug, vindicated smirk. Mahal, why did he have to let that awe seep into his tone? He may as well have added something inane like "too much style" and his slip of the tongue would have been complete.

Between them, the wizard was shaking with restrained laughter, pipe giving off smoke with each muffled snicker. "What is this, Wizard? What do you know!?"

Gandalf was visibly restraining his impending guffaws. "Oh, I assure you I am as lost as you are." It rung true, but the old man seemed to find the situation of being totally caught by surprise utterly pleasing. Exhilarating even. Fortunately, the Valar took pity on Thorin and the old wizard didn't get a chance to say whatever witty (to him) follow-up was on the tip of his tongue because the hobbit crowd settled, only for a different cheer to start.

"Speech! Speech! Speech!"

Naturally, the lean hobbit acquiesced. Standing tall, he twirled his bow between his fingertips. "My dear Bagginses and Boffins!" He carelessly but unerringly tossed the bow across the crowd, to the bonnet-wearing woman manning the cheese stand. "Tooks and Brandybucks!" He sent the violin flying in a similar manner, and Thorin's heart skipped a beat at the blatant abuse. But it was caught by clever fingers belonging to an unknown hobbit man, and the crowd cheered again. "Grubbs!" More cheers and laughs, each time he spoke the name of another family. There were dozens of them and he knew them all, until he finally finished with "Chubbs, Hornblowers, Bolgers, Bracegirdles aaand Proudfoots!"

The cheers were loudest, almost raucous to Thorin's ears, but even so the old hobbit manning the produce wagon, with the largest feet Thorin had ever seen – feet propped horizontally on the same stool that had been used to make a walkway for Bilbo Baggins earlier – shouted over the clamor. "It's Proud_feet!"_

"Actually, it's not!" Blbo shot back from his high perch, throwing the older man a cheeky grin. "And I put together a complete etymologic and lexical treatise to prove it." He reached into his coat and pulled out a small notebook, bound with a strap. "Behold! The marvels of Westron grammar!" He tossed it like a disk. The object landed with a plop on top of the open corn sack right next to the old Proudfot hobbit. The latter glared up at Bilbo Baggins and bit on the mouthpiece of his pipe, but even from his poor, far off vantage point Thorin could see there was no real ire there. "Hmph!"

Bilbo only grinned wider, then looked back down at his enraptured audience and threw his arms wide. "My dear gentle and not-necessarily-quite-as-gentle hobbits!" With a flourish, he stuck a pose, one hand on his hip and the other forward, index finger pointing to the horizon. "I'm going on an adventure!"

There was no sensible reason why the crowd would react as it did. There was no reason the Halfling could even command their _attention_, let alone the reverence he was being shown. But it happened. Right there, the crowd erupted in cheers yet again, and Thorin was no longer wondering if he'd fallen down a rabbit hole.

There was no need to _wonder_. He knew it with utter certainty now.

Bilbo Baggins looked startled, though Thorin could tell he was faking it. He brought his hands up to ward off the noise, and when it settled down he dared speak again. "Whoa! The way you keep going on it's like you can't wait to see me gone!"

This time, everyone sputtered denials and tripped over each other trying to reassure the speech-giver. Though at least half of the repliers seemed only to be humoring Bilbo Baggins because they realized he was making jest.

"Ah!" Bilbo relaxed. "So it _is_ that you're just excited about the party you think I'm about to throw. I'm sorry if I insulted anyone with my doubts but 50 years is far too short a time to live among such excellent and admirable hobbits!" Cheers abounded. "After all, I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve."

The crowd made an aborted movement to cheer but stopped. Hobbits stared blankly at each other, unable to figure out if they'd just been insulted or not. After a while, it became apparent that most wouldn't figure it out, and those that did were going to keep the secret under their foothair. So they focused on the part of the speech that they could make sense of.

Until one particularly courageous lad asked. "Party we _think_ you're going to throw?"

For his part, Thorin was stumped. Did that mean that Bilbo Baggins always threw a feast in his own honor before traveling? How… _vain_.

One of the children (Mahal, there was so many of them too) hesitantly spoke up when no one else would. "…_Aren't_ you throwing one, Mister Bilbo?"

"Of course I am!" The Halfling assure with a careless wave. "Unfortunately, many of you _probably_ won't want to come so I'm not sure I should even-" He couldn't say anything more because no small number of people burst into declarations that more or less went along the lines if _Of COURSE we'll all come if YOU throw a party!_

Eventually, though, someone managed to shout louder than everyone else. "Why do you think people won't come? _Everyone_ wants to come when you're entertaining!" That settled everyone down, but then the follow-up came. "Unless you _won't_ be entertaining?"

Even having listened to two instances of Bilbo Baggins playing music, Thorin couldn't understand why the Hobbitry would turn so crestfallen. It only got even more stupefying when the crowd erupted in _distress_ of all things over what could prevent "Master Baggins" from playing. Was he okay? Had something happened? Had he come down with something and only _barely_ managed to play those two tunes earlier? Because they could whip up a mean tea and fix him right up if that was it-

"It's not that I won't be there to entertain. I _will_." It caused a visible ripple of relief. It was mindboggling. "Thing is… This time I don't intend for the party to take place in The Shire."

There was silence. "What?" Old Proudfoot yelled. "Why not?"

Bilbo Baggins raised an eyebrow, reached out and pointed. "That's why."

As one, everyone twisted or craned their necks to look at the newest-looking building in Bywater, which also happened to be the tallest. Thorin found himself doing the same and recognized it as the "Big Folk Wing" of The Green Dragon Inn. It stood by the main road, just outside the entrance to the market square, and was perfectly visible from there.

"Mister Cotton!" Bilbo's voice drew them back to the matter at hand.

The Innkeeper was leaning against the fence close enough to the "stage" to hear fine but far enough to also see Bilbo without having to twist his neck upwards. "Aye?"

"How many patrons does that building currently have?"

"One," the plump Hobbit bit from his apple and chewed for a bit. "Although since Master Gandalf's more _your_ guest than mine, I s'pose 'none' is just as right."

"Exactly!"

Beside him, Dwalin shook his head in amazement and muttered. "Oh, here we go again."

The Master of Bag End began to pace on the roof of the stall he was on. "Six years it has been since that building was erected. Six years and we only ever had a handful of our brave protectors dropping by to take advantage of the complimentary hospitality we ever so hospitably offered!" He sounded positively peeved as he paced back and forth. Thorin was shocked by one word. Complimentary? Did that mean Hobbits provided the Rangers with free lodgings and service? "Six years and we only ever had a dozen of them passing through the Shire instead of going around it, through fog and rain. Even though taking the direct path between the Ruins of _Annúminas_ and the Far Downs would shave _three_ _days_ off the trip. Three days!"

A wave of assenting murmurs and mutters washed through the assembled populace.

"It would not have been so odd if, say, the Rangers shifted their patrols to focus more around the northern border and the Brandywine river to the east. But if that was the case, the fine Hobbit establishments of Nobottle and Buckland would have been put to good use instead, and they have not! I checked! And wouldn't you know it, Harcot and Springdell in South Farthing informed me of the same! Now what does that tell us?"

Instead of piping up with answers, everyone just waited for Bilbo Baggins to get to the heart of the matter.

_"_It means…" Bilbo narrowed his eyes and sternly gazed down at the crowd. "It means that the _Dúnedain_ Rangers _still_ aren't comfortable passing through The Shire." Thorin could almost hear the weight dropping in the stomachs of everyone present with a figurative _plop_. "Now why would _that_ be the case, I wonder…"

Hobbits shifted uncomfortably.

"I bet it's them Sackville-Bagginses," someone muttered. "'S'just our luck that they live in The Far Downs, right where the southern path turns around. I'll bet them big folk made the mistake of taking the Sackville-Hardbottle path once when finishing their patrol and knew better than to make the same mistake again, with how rude and gossipy the folk is down those parts." The quiet had become all the deeper the more he spoke. The grey-haired Halfling realized he was the center of attention and ducked his head in embarrassment, but managed to peer up at Bilbo. "'Sorry. No offense, Mister Bilbo, I know they're your family an' all but it's true."

"None taken," Bilbo waved the issue. "And I may as well lay your fears to rest. That's not the reason. I had the possibility investigated a couple of months back. Besides, Sackville is a small town to the southwest, hardly capable of influencing the appeal of all other paths."

Thorin narrowed his eyes at the choice of words. _Had_ the possibility investigated. That implied he had human resources he could call on to do it for him. Or, well, Halfling resources.

"Beats us, then," The innkeeper said then. "Earth knows we've all been itching to see more of'em ever since you were kind enough to clear up the whole misunderstanding about'em defending our borders an'all." He scratched his cheek. "My daughter Petunia used to have all these nasty suspicions from when she spotted them during her patrols up North, but now she's mooning over'em whenever they come by, as rare as it is. I'm half-scared she'll try to elope with one someday."

Thorin had to tighten his jaw to avoid scoffing. That'll be the day. Imagine, a Halfling wed to a descendant of Númenor. He'd never heard something more ridiculous.

Most of the crowd did laugh though.

"And that is where the problem lies," Bilbo's voice rung again as his pacing resumed. "We've made it _clear_ that they are welcome here. We've made it _clear_ that we would _like_ to have them over as often as possible_. _And we made it _abundantly_ clear that we're straightforward folk who speak our mind, which means we _meant_ every word when we said all that. So, by all accounts, there is no reason they would still avoid coming into The Shire. That leaves two possible explanations."

Thorin had no idea what Bilbo was getting to, but unfortunately he didn't see any way to cross the Halfling sea to where his Dwarves were, all the way on the other side. Most seemed just as enraptured by the spectacle, though some were multitasking and… was Bofur carving a wooden toy for that tiny creature? Oh wait, even he stopped to pay more attention.

"One!" Bilbo stopped pacing and held up one finger. "They don't think we're worth their time." Frowns and head tilts, but no ire. "Which is impossible." Ah, so that was why. "After all, if we were not worth their time they would not dedicate pretty much their entire lives to protecting us from the creatures of the dark. They would not do it _now_ and would not have done it during all the centuries since the fall of the kingdom of Arthedain. So that leaves one other option, which, unfortunately, is _worse_."

Everyone seemed to hold their breath, and even old Proudfoot was sitting on the edge of his seat. And though he didn't realize it, Thorin was anticipating the answer too.

And then it came. "It _means_… that our dear Dúnedain defenders think they can have a merrier time without us." It was completely against logic, but that conclusion really did seem to cause a storm cloud of annoyance and depression to fall over the ones assembled. Thorin didn't get it. How in Mahal's forge fire was that _worse?_ "And we all know that _that_ notion is completely, patently _absurd!_"

"Damn straight!"

"Them big folk must be too close to the sky, they're getting addled by all the wind and sun in their hair."

"The nerve!"

And so went the grumblings of the Halfling population. Thorin found he could do naught but blink dumbly at the bizarre spectacle.

"And so I say that this cannot stand!" Bilbo shouted over the din, sweeping his arm in a flourish. "To think more merriment can be had in our absence! Ridiculous! _Everyone_ knows that there are _none_ who know how to have a better time that The Good Folk of The Shire! And so, tomorrow I will depart, by myself if I have to, and show them the error of their ways! Show them the Truth that _none_ but Hobbits know the meaning of a _true party!_"

The crowd went _insane_, as if their Maker himself had descended from the sky on a diamond chariot studded with stars. Thorin blinked, then did it again, several times, so stupefied by how surreal the scene was that he was wondering if he'd actually passed out at some point in the night. Maybe everything from before the first tune onwards was actually an elaborate nightmare.

He bit his cheek enough to draw blood, but nothing happened. Nothing that made any more sense. So it _was_ real. It almost made him despair. It proved once again that Hobbits definitely had a different view of life than dwarves, and that it was the kindest thing he could find to say or even think about them. Not that Thorin spared enough thought to that realization. He was too busy wondering who the hell the "everyone" was that knew that _only_ Hobbits knew how to throw a party.

_Dwarves_ were the ones that threw unrivalled feasts, thank you very much!

Eventually, the uproar calmed and Bilbo Baggins could speak again. "So that's why I said I wasn't sure about the attendance-"

"As if!" One shouted. "Ye're nuts if you think we'll miss it! Why, imagine, when we show up there… the look on their faces alone! It's bound to be priceless!"

About a dozen agreements came before another hobbit had this to say. "Besides, you can't think you can drag all the party supplies on yer own, lad! The trip'll take days! Why, you'll need things to carry them in! Ponies even!" It somehow made a hush fall over the assembled multitude.

"Excellent!" Bilbo grinned. "Then if we go, we go in force! Ready the carts and load up the clay ovens! And make sure to bring the strongest and tamest animals you've got. Bring sacks of corn and rye while you're at it. The Rangers' horses deserve a treat too. _Don't_ they?"

"Aye!"

"Aye indeed!" Bilbo echoed his kinsman, and the enthusiasm rippled, echoed on itself and only grew from that further and higher. "If they go out of their way to refuse our hospitality then we'll drag our hospitality to them! Especially if we find out they did it out of some misguided sense of propriety. For we are Hobbits, and Hobbits don't stand for such nonsense!" The outcry was massive, as if their maker had enacted the Second Coming. "So let us waste no time!" Bilbo did not yell, but his voice carried over the uproar anyway. "The day is half-way done! Load up the ovens and ready the carts, for tomorrow!" Instantly one hand was on his hip and the other had a finger pointing at the sun above. "We leave for Sarn Ford!"

Thorin forgot to blink for a good five minutes. He only stopped when the revived chaos of the market somehow caused a speck of dirt to fly unerringly into his left eyeball and made him swear hard enough to leave even the crassest miners stunned. It had been bad enough that his eye started tearing. The only mercy he got for that was that only Gandalf and Dwalin saw it. His gruff but oddly vindicated old friend moved closer to hand over a patch of cloth.

All the while, the wizard laughed.

Everything that had happened would have been enough to leave a lesser dwarf shell-shocked, but Thorin was not a lesser dwarf. It was close, but his self-defined, majestic flair withstood the siege he was subjected to by the forces of Halfling unconventionalism.

So of _course_ there would be more to come. There always was. "Umm…. Mister Bilbo, sir!" A Hobbit lad asked shyly from where he'd walked right at the foot of the stall roof where the not-burglar now sat, one leg swung over the edge. "How many carts will there be exactly? My brother's the one that minds the cattle this week." He rushed to explain. "I wanted to know how many oxen I should tell him to herd back from the pastures."

"All of them."

Somehow, that made the entire marketplace freeze.

"_All_ of them, mister Bilbo?"

"Aye," the Hobbit grinned. "And the rams too… After all…" With surprising grace, he stood to his feet again and leaned on one foot, gaze roaming over the entire market, not even stopping to acknowledge the two errant dwarves staring at him. He stopped, instead, when he locked eyes with the middle-aged meat vendor. After a few seconds, he turned his attention to the fingernails he was polishing against his waistcoat. "We'll need them because I am hereby buying everything you have."

There was silence.

It was like everything had gone still, like in a painting. A swallow flew by, then made a U-turn and circled the scene from above, several times, as if trying to figure out if it was real. Finding inconclusive results, it went on its way before it had to think about it too much.

Thorin couldn't believe it. Couldn't believe how envious he was on behalf of his own people, for not having had something like this ever happen to them after Smaug the Terrible. It was the sort of miracle that only happened once in a century to those that depended on selling what they produced to survive. So one could excuse the effects that what happened next inflicted upon the dwarf king.

The meat vendor gasped and stood, horrified. "You can't! We won't have it!"

Thorin's jaw dropped so far that Dwalin recoiled in surprise.

Bilbo looked and sounded so _crestfallen_. "You… you refuse to sell to me?"

"Yes! No!" The man sounded so _pained_. "Bilbo… Lad, you can't…" He was so flustered but also so _pale_. Then he breathed in and his look became determined. "We won't have it! Not after what happened last time!"

"But…" Bilbo either felt like someone had kicked his puppy or really was that good an actor. "But I paid what I owed-"

"And most of the food ended up in our bellies!" The meat vendor stuck a finger at him. "And the leftovers only went back to our larders because you left on your _adventure_ the same day so there was nothing else we could do with them but take them back! And you only bought a fifth of the market _then_. Well I for one won't have it happen again! It was shameful that we allowed it last time! It's basically the same as _paying_ _us to attend_!"

Bilbo's dejected façade turned into a mulishly stubborn one. "Well, I've made my claim! I'm buying everything and you can't stop me!"

"Yes we can!" Various other hobbits nodded and crossed their arms. "Even if we have to outbid you to do it!"

Thorin was… he didn't know… What was this he didn't even…

Bilbo frowned, then a smile slowly, slowly overtook his face, even as his head dipped forward, casting a faint shadow over his eyes. "Alright then." Without warning, he hopped off the roof and landed lightly on the ground, facing the older but just as determined meat vendor. "Challenge accepted!"

The tension was thick in the air. The standoff was strained, and the meat vendor's fingers twitched at his side, unnerved by Bilbo's easy countenance but unwilling to give in. For one whole minute they stayed that way, ramrod straight and refusing to blink.

Then the apothecary, who had the most valuable merchandise and who'd been turning his head from one star Hobbit to the other, sighed and sat back in his seat behind the stall. "Well, count me out of your competition because I've just decided to donate everything on my stall to the cause."

Thorin tripped on an empty bucket he did not know was behind him and fell on his backside.

Across the market square, Bilbo Baggins slumped and palmed his face, then rolled his eyes and turned his exasperation on the totally unruffled concoction and salve maker that had just ruined everything. "Now _that_ was just unfair!"

Thorin would have seen the odd glint in the eyes of the sure-fingered man, even from that distance, if he wasn't too busy being sprawled on the ground and groaning away the pain in his back.

As it was, he only heard the response. "All's fair in love and war, my lad."

The dwarf king was about ready to let Dwalin help him up when, on their side of the square, Old Proudfoot the cereal and flour stall holder puffed his pipe. "That's actually not a bad idea. Methinks I'll be doing the same. Doubt I'd have enough time to hammer out the books by tomorrow anyhow."

Several "Count me in"s or equivalents came afterwards, and all the fight left Thorin's body. He sagged on himself with a sigh. "That's it. I'm done."

Halflings were just so _backwards._


	5. The Shire-5: Master of Hill

**A/N: **I really didn't mean to take so long, and wanted to get further than I did, but figured it would be a good completion for the first arc. The journey begins in Chapter 6, though not quite as you might be expecting.

* * *

><p><strong>The Shire – 5: Master of Hill<strong>

"-. .-"

"I bet it'll be better than that one time when that platoon actually happened to be in town when the last pre-adventure day came around," the woman that had snatched Bilbo's fiddle bow said from her stall. "They thought we'd brought too much food. Poor folk. They probably never get enough to eat on the road. They're always so grim and their faces so drawn-in. That settles it! I'll be sending word to my sisters in Tighfield to bring the best honey and blueberry syrup."

Thorin kept listening to the chatter with _only_ half an ear. Deliberately. He was fairly certain that if he allowed any more of his attention to focus on the hobbits and what they were saying, he would have a rather more… intense reaction to their bizarre way of life. It was bad enough that he'd taken to sitting on the upside-down bucket he'd tripped on earlier. On his left, across the alley leading out between the big folk building and the pottery, Gandalf stood and puffed his pipe, looking obnoxiously delighted by the scene before him.

The dwarf king (to-be) entertained the idea of retrieving his company and getting the hell out of dodge, but that would have meant braving the crowd, and he wasn't sure he could take a more direct, close-up exposure to hobbits without losing whatever shred of sanity he had left.

Not that he was ever going to admit that out loud.

Mahal, they were so backwards. The "trade" consisted of how good each hobbit was at bringing up reasons why _they_ should contribute this or that, pro bono, instead of someone else. Whenever someone won an argument, they left looking smug, while the other either laughed it off or grumbled about the "nerve" of the other thinking _their_ goods were better than their own. Not that it happened often. For the most part, the Hobbitry seemed content to all pitch in.

Thorin hoped this only applied to parties, or that Bilbo Baggins was to blame for this temporary mass insanity. He doubted he could handle it if this was what Hobbits were normally like. It was like they had no concept of real trade at all. Or maybe they just got it all wrong. They _were_ backwards…

A few feet to his right, Dwalin was doing his best not to fidget while looking over the crowd and keeping an eye each on Fili and Kili. At least those two were sticking together. Thorin himself also let his eyes roam over the hobbit populace, since the side of the market square they were on was a bit higher up than the rest, so even though he was sitting on the bucket he still reached above their eye level.

Unfortunately, that meant he got a perfect view of the moment when Balin and Gloin finally laid eyes on them. The two dwarves were listening to Bilbo cheerfully explaining something or other, but stepped back when the Halfling was called upon by one of his equally crazy kinsmen. A question about cargo handling no doubt. Regardless, once the hobbit left the two dwarves, Balin looked around and finally spotted the two of them. Well, three if the Wizard counted.

Balin's eyes narrowed and his face settled into a pinched expression.

A moment later, Gloin saw what Balin was looking at and adopted a similarly peeved look. Then the two old dwarves made for them. And somehow, all the hobbits milling about got out of their way looking for the life of them like it was just a coincidence that a perfectly straight path was cut for the two members of the Company.

Balin looked like a dwarf on an orc hunt, and Thorin felt a weight settle in his gut. That look was not good. Not good at all.

But he refused to be cowed. He was King! So he got up from the bucket as if he was sitting up from a plush armchair and adopted his well-practiced, dour gaze. And when Gloin and Balin cleared the worst of the market chaos, he opened his mouth and-

"Wizard!"

… shut it with a dull clamp from the sheer confusion of it.

Gandalf blinked and didn't even have time to ask why Balin was descending on him like a hurricane because the dwarf grabbed him by a wrist none too gently. "Come, let us have a talk, shall we?" His voice sounded so sinisterly sweet that Thorin swallowed any intent of verbally interfering.

"What do y-" was all Gandalf managed to get out before he was dragged off into the alley. Well, half-dragged by Balin and half-pushed by Gloin.

Completely nonplussed, Thorin shared a perplexed look with Dwalin and ran after them. They caught up none too soon, because when Balin judged them far enough removed from the market square, he damn near tossed Gandalf forward and rounded on him. "Are we a joke to you, wizard?!"

"… I… I beg your pardon?" Gandalf stumbled, both on his words and on his feet.

"Are we a joke to you? Was this all a joke to you? Did you spark hope in our plight for some sick amusement?" Balin would have been spitting mad if he didn't have centuries of practice at staying composed. As it was, instead of snarling and spreading his spit everywhere, he was only red in the face and eloquently stabbing the wizard with words. "Did your tendency to count us out by names like dwarflings bleed over into your addled mind? Did you age catch up with you to the extent that you think we are like children you can lead around by the nose?!"

"What on earth do you-"

"You told us you had arranged things with the burglar weeks ago!" Balin damn near shouted. "And we arrive to find out that the last time you even came within a day's distance of Bilbo Baggins prior to yesterday morning was actually 10 years back!" Hold on, _what_? "I have to wonder, did it at least turn out as amusing as you hoped? Was that your plan? To have a good laugh at our expense for descending on his home like uninvited ruffians?! Or was it that you hoped our uninvited arrival would overwhelm our host and turn _him_ into a laughing stock instead! You certainly seemed quite amused throughout the entire spectacle this morning!"

Thorin gaped as Gandalf sputtered. The next word that was spoken came from his own mouth, and he soon wished he'd kept silent. "Balin-"

The dwarf royal advisor whirled on him and jabbed him in the chest with his finger. "Don't you Balin me!" Thorin staggered back. "I'll get to you later, oh yes I will, believe me!" After which he, thankfully, turned back upon the wizard. "Did you or did you not lie to us about having secured a burglar when you had, in fact, never even spoken to him in person!?"

The grey meddler worked his jaw a couple of times before seemingly rallying himself. "I assure you that's not-"

"I don't care for excuses!" Balin cut him off derisively. "Do you realize what you did? You made us look like morons!" Thorin cringed. Wasn't that a bit much? Or had his men done… things before he arrived? "Or did you expect a common hobbit as we know them? A _grocer_?" Thorin winced at the disdain hat dripped from that word. "You would have painted Bilbo Baggins as someone who had made a promise to aid us but was now trying to weasel out of it because of the danger. Even if he came with us in the end, we would have treated him as a dishonorable outsider and a coward because of that! Or was that your intention?! To set him up for something like that? Or was it to set _us _up? To sow mistrust and ill will among us? When it was you that set us on this path in the first place?"

"Why… I assure you I did not! Why, that you would even think such a-"

"You gave Thorin a map that led to the tannery!" The dwarf in question gaped and, when the words fully sank in, started rummaging through his coat pockets, looking for the parchment. "You vandalized a property! And you did it when the one inside was as far away from a burglar as anyone could possibly get!"

Reeling, the wizard tried to regain his balance. "..Wh… Well, I never!" His voice seemed to regain its steadiness and he tossed a glare of his own. "If I say Bilbo Baggins is a burglar, then a burglar he is!"

"So you're delusional too!" Balin snapped. "Spare me your theatrics. You know full well what Bilbo Baggins really is!"

Thorin blinked and looked up from the map he was perusing. "He does?"

Gandalf looked well and truly rattled and confused. "Whatever I may have _omitted_ surely can't be enough to caus-"

"Oh, don't you even _try_," Balin cut him off. "Unlike _others_, I do know my Westron grammar." Balin started pacing to and fro, length-wise in regards to the road. He passed Thorin and Dwalin's position twice before he stopped with his back to them, reached up to rub his beard and pondered something. Then he whirled on his feet again and glared at the wizard. "I'm going to ask you one more thing, wizard."

"I'm sure I'll-"

"I wasn't finished!"

"…"

"Right… so, I'll ask you this _one_ thing. And just so we're clear, if I don't like your answer I'll spend the rest of my life using my position as royal advisor to _advise_ that you should be considered an enemy of the dwarven people on par with Smaug."

The sight of the jaws of both Thorin Oeakenshield and Dwalin dropping to the floor would have been comical in any other situation. But there could be little humor in what essentially amounted to the closest thing to a declaration of everlasting enmity.

Gandalf stared at the dwarf, stunned, for a minute. Then his eyes narrowed and he huffed in frustration. "You dwarves and your drama… Fine! Ask your question that we may put this foolishness past us."

Thorin almost couldn't believe it. How could the wizard _not_ consider everything said before a serious issue?

But as fate would have it, Balin's next question made things even worse. The old dwarf met Gandalf's frustrated gaze with his own blistering glare and growled through his clenched teeth. "When were you going to inform us that Bilbo Baggins was royalty?"

…

With something between shock and outrage, Thorin turned on the wizard himself.

Gandalf looked gobsmacked for a moment, then he slowly dropped his head and reached up to grab the bridge of his nose.

...

Oh.

Well _damn_. "He's _WHAT?" _Thorin shrieked, voice sounding an octave or two higher than normal as he looked at Balin again. "But… but he really looks like a groc-"

"HE WEARS GOLD-LINED _VELVET!_" Gloin hollered in tandem with Balin from where he was beyond the man, making Gandalf jump. "He had stores of food large enough to throw us a feast without prior notice!" Balin added as he advanced on his king. "He has plumbing and unlimited hot water! His house was large enough to host us all comfortably! Even has special big folk rooms! And he was well enough educated in foreign cultures to anticipate our needs and social norms. At least until _you_ arrived, my _king_." Thorin would have normally chastised anyone who would address him so rudely, but in that moment he was only sorry he'd drawn his advisor's ire away from Gandalf and to himself. "He could have rightfully thrown us _all_ out after the stunt you pulled! Not just from his home but from the Shire itself! Where all those lessons I gave you in manners and diplomacy went, I'll never know!"

It took all of Thorin's mental strength to stay blank-faced. That had _stung_.

"Mighty good thing he didn't throw us out too," Gloin grunted. "Or we might've all ended up like Nori."

That got Dwalin to snap out of the shock he'd fallen into when the word "royalty" had been spoken earlier. "What? What do you mean? What did the thief get himself into this time?"

Thorin winced. Did Dwalin _have_ to yell out the occupation of that dwarf? Thank Mahal no hobbits were there to hear.

Or so he thought.

As it happened, the older member of the company was of similar mind. "Will you keep it down!" Balin hissed at his brother. "Or do you want to the whole Shire to think we're harboring a criminal and think we're all up to no good?"

"There ain't no one nearby to hear," the surly Dwalin said.

Balin laughed half-manically. "Oh, I assure you there are at _least_ four hobbit Bounders watching us right now." Thorin stiffened and began to look around as unobtrusively as he could. "Don't bother, my _king_. You won't see them, the same way you failed to see them trailing us ever since we stepped onto Hobbit territory."

"… What did you say?" He must have misheard. Hobbits were bizarre creatures, but certainly not versed in skullduggery, not with those round-bellied frames of theirs.

"Exactly what I said," Balin answered drily. "_Nori_ didn't see them either, so he thought it was safe to try and eavesdrop on Bilbo Baggins through the window after you left last night. He got himself rendered unconscious and thrown into the closest pig sty for his trouble."

"… You're joking," Dwalin said flatly.

"Not at all," Balin was just as flat-toned. "I'd say 'ask him' only he's not present, or even aware right now. He's back in Bag End, insensate. And if I understand correctly, when he does wake up he won't have any memory of last night."

That took both dwarves aback. "What do you mean-"

"I can't say more," Balin waved him silent. "Bounder matters. I signed a non-disclosure agreement."

Thorin reached up to rub at both temples. Why oh _why_ did they ever think coming to the Shire was a good idea?

"You still haven't answered me, wizard!" Balin shouted at the strained-looking Istar.

Gandalf sighed heavily. "Hobbits do not _have_ royalty."

There was an awkward silence.

Which Balin broke. "Unbelievable…" He breathed, shaking his head. "Tarkun…" Balin asked, slowly enunciating each syllable as if he was speaking to a simpleton. "Is the Thain or is he _not_ the one in charge of the Shire's judicial, diplomatic, economic and military matters?"

"Well… officially he _is_ but-"

"And is Thain or is it _not_ a hereditary title?"

Gandalf looked vaguely annoyed. "Well yes, but-"

But Balin was too angry to humor him. "And is Bilbo Baggins or is he _not_ his sister-son!?"

The silence said everything, even though Gandalf seemed more frustrated with how no one seemed inclined to see or even consider his point. As he looked at the man, Thorin supposed there probably was a supporting argument in there somewhere, but he was pretty certain he would agree with Balin's instead even if it did come out.

Mahal, this sort of situation probably deserved an acronym.

"Oh my lord!" Balin palmed his forehead. "It's a wonder we didn't all get dumped beyond the Shire border with hallucination-induced memories of a week's worth of drunken debauchery!" Rubbing his palm down his face, the dwarf glared at Gandalf yet again. "Just so you know, if it happens I'm blaming you!"

"It won't."

"GAH!" Balin jumped a whole foot in the air when that voice came from right behind him. He managed to land on his feet but brought a hand to his chest, facing the newcomer. For his part, Thorin spun on his heels to face the new voice that was suddenly there. Why the hell wasn't Dwalin watching their backs? Oh, wait, he was paying as much attention to Gandalf being dressed down as he was. He supposed he shouldn't blame him too much…

Balin gasped. "Don't DO that!" With some effort, he managed to take a deep breath, then release it. "Spare this old man's heart, lad!"

Bilbo, who'd somehow come to be right behind where Balin used to be, frowned. "I walked up here _normally_."

Balin deflated and dropped his head with a shrill sigh. "Of _course_ you did."

"As a matter of fact," Gandalf piped up, sounding annoyed. "He arrived a couple of minutes earlier." The wizard frowned in disapproval. "He just decided to keep ever so unhelpfully silent."

Bilbo looked totally unimpressed. "And what were you expecting? A rescue?" He scoffed, not even acknowledging Thorin's presence even then. The nerve. "You may have apologized to _me_ for the harm you committed against _my_ person and _my_ creation, Gandalf, and I am willing to be cordial if you will. But _I_ am merely one of fourteen whom you _knowingly_ and _deliberately_ wronged."

After wondering if he should feel mollified at being included in that statement, Thorin decided to take what he could get.

Bilbo broke eye contact with the aggravated old man and met Balin's again. "That said, I may as well clarify that in this, at least, Gandalf is somewhat correct. The Shire is not a monarchy. I am no more important than my fellows due to my bloodline. In fact, reputation-wise, I get more of my so-called respectability from being a Baggins instead of a Took." He smirked then. "The reason people seem to fall over themselves to please me is because of my contributions to the community and, of course, because I am the best entertainer you'll ever find!"

Balin, who had calmed down somewhat, pondered that. "So… you're saying that the Shire is a _meritocracy?"_

Bilbo opened his mouth, then closed it. After a moment, he nodded. "Yes, that is just about right."

On Balin, that answer had the opposite effect than the one Thorin was expecting and hoping for. "Oh Mahal, that only makes this _worse_!" Balin openly despaired, sinking his face in both hands.

Valar above, he seemed to be swearing by their God a lot, Thorin thought.

Bilbo sighed softly and pulled out a flask from… somewhere under his long coat. Still acting as if no one but Balin and Gandalf existed, he approached the old dwarf and laid a hand on his shoulder. "Here, you look like you could use a drink."

Though looking tired, frazzled really, and somewhere between grateful and uncomfortable for a second, Balin accepted the bottle and took a long chug. When he finished he exhaled from the depths of his lungs and stared at the container curiously before handing it back. "What _is_ that? It had no taste but _felt_ sweet and charged, somehow."

Bilbo gave a vague smile and responded, much to general bemusement. "Water, my good dwarf." The container was gone. How had he missed the hobbit stashing it away, Thorin had no idea.

And now what? Given Balin's attitude earlier, there was no way Bilbo Baggins was going to join them without an apology from him. On the one hand, hindsight suggested he really had approached the situation… inadequately. On the other, the dwarf king wasn't sure he even wanted Baggins for a burglar at this point. And it wasn't just because the idea of _apologizing_ to _anyone_ rankled. Truly, it was not! Besides, they didn't need an "entertainer" on the quest.

"Now!" The hobbit turned away from the incredulous, white-haired dwarf to finally, finally look at the two of them. "The reason I am truly here." Well, if he was going to renounce his advantage by speaking first, who was Thorin to deny him- "Master Dwalin."

Hold up, _what?_

Bilbo, for the life of him, acted as though Thorin didn't even exist. Despite that Dwalin was half-way behind him, as bodyguards tended to hover. "It has come to my attention that you were the victim of a misunderstanding."

With a cautious glance in Thorin's direction (and no, Thorin was _not_ gritting his teeth), Balin's brother finally spoke for once. "Misunderstanding?"

Bilbo Baggins proved he had no qualms about speaking his mind. "The kind that led you to the conclusion that my house was trying to molest you."

Gloin started to cough suspiciously in the background.

Dwalin sputtered unintelligibly for a few moments before rallying himself (and could he blame him? Thorin was staring in shock too), but he didn't get the chance to speak.

"So tell me, Master Dwarf. How on _Arda_ would the concept of sexuality even apply to a building?" Dwalin was stumped by the earnest, nearly astonished tone. Thorin had to grudgingly admit he had a point. "And even if it were possible, do keep in mind that Bag End's sentience is only ten years old."

Dwalin stared. "… Oh." Then he blinked, and blinked again. "Why'd it try to smother me with the curtains then?"

"Not smother. Hug." Bilbo replied. Because _that_ sounded so much less bizarre. "You not only were the first dwarf to ever come through my gate, but you are also the most honest person I've ever encountered." Dwalin stared, and when he didn't find anything but frankness in the Hobbit's eyes, he shifted a bit at the… praise? "Thoughts and feelings aren't fully ensconced in your heads, Master Dwarf. They are like strands and eddies, swirling about you, or like a star of blazing fire. Sometimes I can perceive them as they affect the world, but Bag End does it all the time." Thorin nearly scoffed, but then remembered almost being eaten by darkness and grimaced instead. "Normally, such eddies are mild, muted, but they are brighter and stronger the freer a person thinks and feels. The more straightforward they are, the stronger their feelings show. I long learned to control my Flame, but I still burn bright enough when I reach out with my mind to talk to my home. And yet you burned and still burn brighter than even that. When you accepted my invitation, it was like a sun entered my house." Dwalin's ears pinked as he looked down at the hilt of the axe he was fiddling with. "Even now you flare with protective loyalty. And the sheer love you have for your kin blazes brighter than even that of your king."

Dwalin was well and truly red now, even on the top of his bald head, and didn't seem to register the outrage and hurt Thorin felt. At that underhanded accusation that he didn't care for his people as much as he should.

"That said!" Bilbo turned casual but no less honest. "I apologize on behalf of Bag End for the discomfort you may have felt due to this misunderstanding. Bag End thought you were reaching out to it and was merely trying to reciprocate. I have since cleared the confusion, but I would still like to extend an offer to facilitate communication between you two." That finally made the blushing Dwalin look up again. "It's not all selfless on my part though! I want Bag End to grow, and it can only gain from being exposed to a person of _your_ moral fiber."

With the expression of one who just saw something he couldn't make heads or tails of, Dwalin looked from Bilbo, to Balin, to Thorin and again Bilbo, then cleared his throat, though he was still pink in the face when he answered. "Erm… That's alright I s'pose. I reckon we have to double back anyhow, since our things are still there." Thorin threw him a dirty look, but Dwalin wasn't looking at him so he _might_ just have failed to notice his king's obvious opinion the matter.

Fat chance. Dwalin had just ignored him!

It made the king glare at the hobbit. The gall, the Halfling was seducing his followers away from him!

"Wonderful!" Bilbo clapped his hands together. "In that case, I should-"

A hobbit fell from the sky and landed a crouch right next to Bilbo.

Except for Balin and Gloin, the dwarves jumped and yelped, but the newcomer didn't pay them much mind. Instead, he pushed to his feet (had he jumped all the way down from the rooftop above?) and went to whisper something in Bilbo's ear. Then he gave a short bow (still not acknowledging anyone other than Bilbo Baggins) and turned to leave, taking off his single-feather cap and collapsing it as he went.

"Ah, I suppose that's my cue to leave," Bilbo said, as if what had just happened was _normal_. "Apologies, we will have to pick this up later. Seems the Mayor of Michel Delving is looking for me. By your leave!"

And he walked off.

Later, he would consider the implications of the Mayor of a village two settlements away coming over from across the Farthing just because Bilbo decided to throw an impromptu party, but for now, there was only silence.

Until Thorin broke it, unable to understand why Balin and Gloin hadn't reacted to the appearance of the halfling. "Was that supposed to be normal? Because the Halfling acted as if it was normal!"

Balin sighed, shook his head in despondence and left as well.

Thorin never did see Gandalf relaxing in what could only be relief that Balin wasn't going to chew him out anymore, but he did hear his advisor's last parting shot. "Just to be clear, I'm not done with you, wizard! Remember! For the next while at least, I know where you live and sleep!"

Gandalf groaned and not-quite stormed away, muttering about dwarves and their drama again, and Gloin left soon after. At the end of it, Thorin could only rub his temples and ask himself again why he ever thought coming to the Shire was a good idea.

Dwalin was silent beside him, but not for long. "Sooo…. Ale?"

"Mahal, yes!"

"-. .-"

Nori woke up slowly, and the first sign of alarm that got set off was the fact that his "I was drugged" alarm _didn't_ go off as it should have. For some reason, he _hadn't_ immediately assumed he'd been drugged, even though the slow crawl into consciousness was a blatantly clear sign he'd been put through that. He'd gotten used to instantly (and undetectably) going from asleep to awake back when he was sixty, not even an adult. And that had been decades ago. Yet he'd just spent at least five minutes trying to figure out why the hell he was in a bed and staring up at what was obviously the ceiling of a hobbit-hole room. Somehow, he _was_ able to deduce the nature of the dwelling he was in just from how low the ceiling was, yet he didn't get around to the "alarm" part until a fair bit later.

Though he could barely see it in the dark. Was it still night?

Unfortunately, his body lacked the responsiveness he was used to, so he couldn't jump out of bed and take cover while scanning for threats. Or even listen for movements and voices. He couldn't process much of anything. Instead, he managed to lift his head some degrees before dropping it with a groan as it started pounding.

Dori was to blame for this somehow. He had to be.

Damn, what the hell had happened?

Nori's eyes pried open. Ignoring the headache this time, he pushed himself up by the elbows (failing to notice how suspiciously unbound and comfortable he was) and blearily looked around, trying to remember if the situation called for rolling off the far side of the bed or jumping towards the door… wherever it was. He could barely see anything beyond a foot away from the bed, and his sluggish mind told him he should be a lot more concerned about that than he was. He couldn't really listen to it that well though. Not after bringing a hand to the side of his head and being informed by the feel on his fingertips that his starfish hair arrangement had been… ruffled would be putting it mildly.

Right. Heads would roll for that.

"I assume you remember at least some of what happened?"

Nori jerked and sat upright, not quite masking a sharp intake of air. He decided to blame it on the stabbing pain that shot through his head at the sudden movement. He stubbornly kept his eyes open though. The unnatural darkness (he could tell it was unnatural now) slipped, ghosted really, a bit farther away, revealing the armchair next to his bed, just a couple of feet away from him. The chair which Bilbo Baggins was lounging in.

"Where am I?" Nori demanded, trying to sound menacing while casting his eyes around for possible weapons. This was, sadly, not the first time he awoke in someone else's "care." Although he wasn't tied up… which was a surprise.

Bilbo raised an eyebrow. Nori noticed that his eyes… didn't _shine_ but were perfectly visible in the darkness. "In Bag End of course," the hobbit drawled. "The room you'd have slept in if you didn't venture outside to perform acts that could so easily be misinterpreted." The gaze sharpened. "Or not be at _all_ misinterpreted, as the case may be."

The dwarf tensed and a fist curled around the blanket that still covered his legs (the oddity of having been tucked in at some point escaped his still somewhat addled mind). If he could distract the hobbit by throwing it in his face, maybe he could stumble blindly and find the door, assuming it wasn't locked. If it was any other Hobbit, his first thought would have been physical assault, but Nori had been present at the "cooking" display earlier (or of the previous night? How much time had passed?), and he wasn't stupid enough to risk assaulting the knife-loving man, especially not in his condition, and not knowing how the weird, living hill would react…

The hill that probably knew to keep the door shut tight. Damn. Right, he needed a new plan. Maybe-

"Stop that," Bilbo suddenly said, and the near-command threw Nori's thoughts off the rails. "Relax, will you? You look like you're plotting our mutual destruction or something."

"Hopefully not mutual," Nori quipped reflexively.

Bilbo snorted. "I'm not the one that put you here," Bilbo headed off any further commends. "That was Dori." Huh, imagine that. He really _was_ to blame, the bastard. "And he made no secret of how peeved he was of you being 'assaulted' by my kinsmen."

Assaulted by hobbits? Was he supposed to believe that? At least the idea of Dori putting him to bed wasn't entirely unlikely. Huh. Surprises never ceased. "Did he now?" Nori hadn't relaxed, exactly, but he figured that it_ did_ look more like he'd been tucked into bed instead of abducted and imprisoned for whatever reason. "Why was I attacked?" Alas, his brain still wasn't working properly, so he only realized the stupidity of that query after it was already out. "Wait, how on earth was I overpowered?" Last thing he remembered was that Dwalin had dragged Thorin off somewhere and he went out to try and eavesdrop on the wizard and weird Hobbit…

The shadows! He'd barely seen them in the dark, and it had been too late by the time he noticed them. There had been two or three of them and before he could do anything something had hit him on the nose and now he was waking up… in Bag End presumably?

Bilbo gazed at him, bringing his fingertips together in front of his face while his elbows sat on the armrests. It all looked quite eerie, with that total blackness around him. Around the both of them really. Nori could give him points for style if nothing else. Or was it Bag End's style? "Tell me something, Master Nori." Bilbo's voice was deliberately casual. "If this was Erebor and you had unknowns dropping by, allowed access to the city for whatever reason, what would you do? I would imagine something along the lines of an escort that would, officially, be a tour guide but would, in fact, also have the task of 'keeping an eye' on the new visitors. Maybe with one or two, not necessarily obvious, extra 'helpers.' How close is my assumption?"

Nori stayed silent, but not for long. "Reasonably."

"And how reasonable would it be to assume that the one receiving the 'escort' would have enough experience or education to recognize the tactic? And that you, knowing they would recognize it, would proceed with it regardless, as an unspoken but obvious warning to be on their best behavior?"

"… Reasonable enough."

"Now, question three, and I urge you to be honest with me." Nori felt the tension shift. Not rise but shift, somehow. "How would you view the situation if _hobbits_ tried to approach the arrival of your company this way?"

"… If this was yesterday I would say… Unexpected?" Nori hedged.

Bilbo raised an eyebrow. Nori saw it because the hobbit wasn't wearing a hood, or even a cloak. And because now the entirety of him looked like he was standing in the midday sun despite the gloom in the rest of the room. "You mean laughable." It was a statement. They both knew it, and Nori didn't reply in any way. "I can understand where you would be coming from. But here's another thing." Bilbo let his arms fall on the armrests and leaned a bit forward. "Do you really think we Hobbits are so simple as to not _know_ that such an approach would be considered laughable coming from us?"

Nori blinked and frowned. His mind flashed back to the last thing he remembered and he suddenly had a feeling of where the discussion was going.

"Here is, then, my last question: do you really think that your opinion would mean we'd let you all roam about unsupervised? Spy on us and eavesdrop from outside windows?"

Nori winced. "Er… woops?"

Bilbo smoothly slipped out of his seat as the dark began to lift. "We are small. We know that. We also know our size ensures everyone other than the rangers will never take us seriously if we show our intent to enforce any sort of rule upon outsiders." Bilbo smiled then, but it was a cold thing. "But just because we don't _show_ our intent to keep 'visitors' from disturbing the peace doesn't mean we don't _do it_."

A weight seemed to settle in the dwarf's gut as the Halfling made for the now visible door. "From your look I assume the antidote to the agent you were shot with worked as intended," Bilbo told him as he left. He paused in the door, still not looking back. "Otherwise you would have no memory of last night and much of the day before." His head turned just enough for a one-eyed glance to make it through. "The Bounders have been notified as to your change in status from 'suspicious snooper' to 'vouched-for guest.' It would have been great if I there wasn't an actual _need_ for me to vouch for you though."

Nori stared at the empty doorway, one line repeating itself in his mind. _You would have no memory of last night and much of the day before_.

What the Stone had the halflings done to him? What… how could he not have seen them close by? Did Bilbo Baggins have guards on his property? Invisible guards? Given how much of the hilltop couldn't be seen from the path, it was possible they could have hidden there…

Then the last words crashed into him. _It would have been great if I there wasn't an actual need for me to vouch for you_. Nori brought a palm to his forehead.

He _owed_ _Bilbo Baggins a favor now_.

Lovely.

Maybe he could try to shirk it somehow… but no, Ori would give him that _look_ and…

Damn.

He ruminated on his status for a time, until his mind finally realized that he couldn't hear any noises and he was, in fact, alone in a room instead of being in the same chamber as his brothers.

Nori jumped out of bed, after making sure he didn't lack his pants or anything. Dori had stripped him naked once and hidden all his clothes in order to keep him from going out to steal things, back before he'd completely given up on him. Of course, Nori took that as a challenge and went out in his birthday suit and proceeded to filch new clothing from wherever he found it. Fortunately, this time he was dressed in an acceptable shirt and slacks, so ran out the door in search of the others.

Mahal, with his luck anything could have happened, from being set up for a scathing Thorin shouting session- er, _lecture_- to having been left behind. He banished that last idea out of his mind, not willing to dwell on how sad it was that he even _considered_ it possible that his two brothers would abandon him for screwing up. That _Ori_ would-

He took in the sight of all the travel packs with an absurd burst of relief. They were all prepared and neatly lined up in the hallway. Come to think of it, he could finally hear some of the others from a couple of rooms away too. And there didn't seem to be any sign of the Hobbit anywhere.

He considered his options. He _could_ go and face the music as it were. He'd have to be sharp in order to fast-talk his way out of the shame of being snuck up on. Not too hard a thing to pull off…

Oh who was he kidding? He'd been made a fool of. By Halflings! He had been snuck up on. Him! By hobbits no less. Durin's mole, how embarrassing.

His eyes settled on a certain part of his immediate surroundings and gave him an idea. Maybe a strategic delay was in order. Good thing there was something right in front of him that could prove a distraction. Besides, it would be a nice way to find out if Baggins really was aware of all that went on in Bag End. Nori doubted he'd leave things alone if the dwarf started to perform "crimes" in his dwelling. Besides, he could multitask just fine, so he'd be mulling over their host's foreboding "revelation" all the while.

Right. Onwards then. For the sake of his pride, such as it was…

Alas, it proved to be a wholly unnecessary delaying tactic. Once he finally built up the courage to sneak a peek in the room where the voices were coming from, he realized why there was so little noise. Dwalin was sprawled over an armchair and seemed to be … snoozing and smiling like a love-struck fool. Nori could barely believe his eyes. He had to tear them away from the sight just to avoid a logic hiccup. He looked at Kili and Fili. They had their heads together, whispering and plotting something. As always.

Other than Balin, who was writing at a desk near a wall under the light of an oil lamp, no one else was present. It made Nori glance out the window and see that it was night. Right, time to figure out what had happened while he was under.

20 minutes later, he left the room, head almost spinning at the realization that he had missed a whole day, not just a few hours of the night. Everyone other than himself and those three he'd just left were sleeping somewhere in the smial. Even Thorin, whose all-nighter had finally caught up with him. Kili and Fili had quite flamboyantly given Nori the rundown of the past day's events, but they didn't answer any of his questions about the Hobbit Bounders, saying they'd signed an NDA of all things. Balin filled in some things, but he'd signed the same contract, and dwarves took contracts seriously.

Fortunately, the middle Ri brother was good at deducing information from vague hints and even silence. He worked through them while redoing his hair and braids in the bathroom. Well, one of the bathrooms. The worst realization was that, apparently, there had been a lot more than three people trailing their steps. Clearly, being dismissive of Hobbits (on their own turf no less) had not worked out for any of them.

Oh, and Bilbo Baggins was royalty. Imagine that!

It at least made him feel a bit better about the whole "getting instantly put under" thing. If Bilbo was that high up, the guards around him would be the best available. Maybe not on Nori's level but close, given Hobbits' natural advantages in regards to snooping. He could live with being overcome if he could rationalize it as being owed solely to the Halflings' home field advantage and veneer of harmlessness, the latter of which would not work on him again. Besides, there had been three of them, and one of him.

And the one who shot him _may_ have been the _actual_ Hobbit prince (no matter that the Shire supposedly wasn't a monarchy). And there was evidence that he was a perfect shot with incredibly keen eyesight. It stroked Nori's ego somewhat.

… for all of one minute. Then Nori sighed and decided to face the fact that he'd essentially shot himself in the foot with his actions, then put that foot in his mouth for good measure. At least he still had the consolation that Thorin and the Wizard had screwed things up worse than he had.

It took a while to finish his hair and beard. It had to be near midnight, by his reckoning, but not feeling nearly tired enough to sleep after being unconscious for a day, Nori took to wandering the round corridors of Bag End. Even the princes and Balin had turned in and Dwalin was just standing near a window and staring distractedly at nothing instead of checking in on the others as he should. Why stay up at all if he wasn't going to keep _watch_? Nori stifled a sigh and went from room to room, carefully prying open the door to each and peeking in, to make sure that everything was as it should be.

Not that he was worried or anything.

Soon enough he was finished and, once again, he was left without a task. Damn. An idle Nori was a fidgety Nori, and a fidgety Nori was a twitchy-handed Nori. Which generally meant that the belongings of everyone else weren't safe. Even if Bag End's sentience was enough of a deterrent to keep him from actually _stealing_ things, Nori doubted he'd be able to stop himself from at least picking up every curiosity and fiddling with it until something dastardly happened. He needed some kind of distraction… a-ha!

Peckishness! Something to dwell on. Very dwarvish too.

Onwards to the kitchen it was then.

Unfortunately, when he got there he found a nice meal already waiting for him. Drat, he was hoping to at least occupy himself for an hour just preparing something. Now what was he going to do all night? He supposed he _could_ go out for a walk. Presumably he wouldn't get assaulted again. Though he _did_ relish the challenge of pitting his skills against someone of similar profession, if not necessarily the same side of the law as himself.

He mulled on the dilemma while he ate. A part of his mind noted that the kitchen was perfectly lit despite there being a single oil lamp burning above. The food was more important though. Ah, broth, mashed potatoes with marinated meatballs and even some beef steak in case the first course wouldn't be enough. Either Bombur or Bilbo Baggins himself had prepared it for him. Probably the hobbit. Bombur was more liable to eat everything in sight.

Actually, that gave him an idea. He had the night to kill anyway, so why _not_ spend it cooking? Contrary to what others thought, he was a decent hand at it. And it would be hilarious to see everyone else look at the food suspiciously in the morning, not sure they should risk eating it in case it was poisoned. Maybe he could persuade Bilbo to claim the cooking as his, _then_ reveal who'd really prepared everything when they were half-way through it.

With a grin, the dwarf inhaled the last of the roast and cleaned after himself in the blink of an eye. Then he made a beeline towards the pantry.

Only to realize, upon passing the threshold, that Bag End had been doing its sound isolating thing all along. There were noises coming out from the basement cellar. Cautiously, Nori traipsed down the stairs as silently as he could.

And there was the hobbit, piling things up, mostly perishables, as though he was preparing to go on a journey, or to send a care package. Or a whole wagon of care packages. Which made sense, considering that he was preparing to go host a party outside the Shire borders.

That had been a hilarious revelation. That their burglar (who still hadn't said he was actually coming along to the Lonely Mountain) had roped a large part of the Shire populace into throwing a party for the rangers. Pro bono. A party they would be leaving for the next morning, like a caravan of some sort. A party which they all were, apparently, going to, or at least accompanying the Hobbit to, even if it did add a few days to the time it would take to reach Bree.

Thorin, of course, had been against it. Until Gandalf said _he_ was going and if they wanted to head off without a wizard OR the fourteenth member of the company, then they were welcome to. The king had eventually (and grudgingly) agreed only when Gandalf told him that Bilbo knew how to shear off the same amount of time from the journey.

"Well don't just stand there," Bilbo suddenly said from below. "You came here for something, did you not?" The hobbit crossed the large store room and began to undo the locks on a large, thick, cast iron door. Nori descended further into the semi-dark, earth-dug room just to make sure he wasn't seeing things. What did the hobbit have down there?

He got his answer when Bilbo finished the third lock and pushed the door in (not without some difficulty, it should be said). It opened with a groan of metal and a blast of cold air that made Nori shudder, in spite of how far he was from it. "Since you're here anyway," Bilbo said, not looking at him, "You can help me put these away." He indicated a couple of large strips of raw meat. The meat that wasn't likely to last for more than a day or two without spoiling. Nori remembered something about Bilbo having ordered them just the day before they descended upon his home. Apparently, the Hobbit wasn't one to go back on his word even for small things like that.

It turned out that the room Bilbo had just opened was a large freezer, with pigs and even cow chops hanging from hooks affixed with chains to the horizontal beams above.

Now that sure was useful. Nori didn't think he'd see a cold room outside Dwarven settlements. Well, not counting the homes of the knife-ears. And there were no runes anywhere either. Nori could only assume that Bag End was able to just turn a room into an oversized icebox somehow.

After an hour of putting things in order, Bilbo stretched his arms and headed over to the wall bearing the dry vegetable and fruit shelves. No sooner was he within a few paces of it that it gave a creak and sunk into the wall itself, several inches, then began to slide to the right. 10 seconds later, there was a dark passage there.

Nori blinked. Well waddaya know.

Then he looked at the hobbit incredulously.

Bilbo shot him a brilliant grin. "So!" Bilbo looked at him over his shoulder. "I'm going to visit someone. Care to join me?"

"… er… You're just inviting me along? Just like that."

"Why not?"

Nori wondered if he'll ever _stop_ wondering if the Halfling was sane or not. "Weren't secret passages supposed to be, I don't know, _secret_?"

"Only when there's danger of them being accessible to others." The Halfling picked up a pouch from a barrel next to the dark tunnel entrance and hung it off his belt. He'd discarded his long coat earlier in the evening. "Which there isn't, because Bag End is great like that!" The light of the lone oil lamp brightened for a moment at the praise.

Freakin' smial.

Nori debated the merits of going with his original plan of cooking versus accompanying Bilbo to… wherever. Eventually, he decided to go with him, if only because he figured he'd be less likely to try and steal everything in sight and bring the wrath of the Hill down upon his head. "Fine. I suppose it couldn't hurt."

Ten minutes later, he began to wonder if he'd spoken too soon, for the simple reason that he felt as if the earth was closing in on him. He was a dwarf, living underground was in his blood, but despite all that he felt like he was about to be buried at any moment. The tunnel was barely large enough to let him through, his solid dwarvish build being almost too wide. And to make matters worse, there was no source of light, so he was all but blind despite the natural night vision of his race. It didn't help that he didn't feel anything reinforcing the soft tunnel, despite using a palm to feel his way forward.

Ahead of him, Bilbo Baggins walked without a care in the world, and Nori could do nothing but watch him, because unlike everything else he _was_ visible, not glowing but still almost clear, colors and all, if somewhat indistinct and with a tint or dark orange, as if bathed in the new light of sunrise. If ever there was any sort of confirmation that it wasn't just Bag End that was unusual, this was it. The dwarf wondered if Bilbo actually saw ahead of his steps, or if he came down this tunnel so often that he didn't need it anymore.

"So," Bilbo broke the silence, almost making Nori jump. "Bag End informed me that you were quite industrious in the short time between your awakening and you washroom ablutions." Well, that answered the question of whether or not he'd found out about him going through everyone's bags earlier. "That said," the hobbit continued, "which things on my property did you ever so valiantly restrain yourself from appropriating?"

"… Huh?"

Bilbo rolled his eyes. "Anything you feel might be needed on the trip? Things you didn't have on hand or forgot about? And which you may or may not have filched in the absence of an all-seeing house spirit?"

Nori looked at the hobbit askance, because they _were_ shoulder to shoulder now. Bilbo had lagged back a bit since, apparently, the tunnel was wide enough for that now. "I assure you, we are quite capable of packing for an extended enterprise, Mister Baggins."

The hobbit clucked his tongue. "Come now, there are thirteen of you, and at least one of your company is at least mildly absentminded. At the very least I can't imagine someone like Fili or Kili _not_ forgetting something important at home."

Nori scowled, though he was somewhat surprised that his companion didn't make a quip about Bifur's axe. "And why are you asking?"

Now it was the hobbit's turn to look incredulous. "Did you seriously just ask me that?" After holding the disapproval on his face for a while, Bilbo Baggins produced a piece of charcoal and some paper from inside a pocket. "So?"

"… Fine. Fili and Kili _did_ manage to forget their oilskin cloaks, if you must know."

"Now we're getting somewhere!" The Master of the Hill happily scribbled down the information. "What else? And what are their sizes? Actually, give me a rundown of potentially useful supplies, plus the whole measurements of everybody for the sake of thoroughness, and we'll go from there!"

What made the hobbit think he even _knew_ those things? Sure, he _did_ know those things, and he wasn't about to explain _how_, but still! Then he caught Bilbo's expectant look and his resolve crumbled… What the hell, it couldn't hurt more than everything else that had happened during the past two days.

It took around 20 minutes to get everything written down. The remaining hour was spent alternatively in silence and Nori's answers to whatever random questions Bilbo posed.

"-. .-"

Nori, son of Bori, didn't really know what he was expecting at the end of the passage. Sure, the light at the end of the tunnel was easy enough to take in. The white, foamy waterfall that covered the mouth of the tunnel was a bit more unexpected, but still reasonable. The sources of the light, though, well, those were a bit above his pay grade.

The dwarf couldn't help but stop and stare at everything around him. It was like stepping into an enchanted glade, only without the open sky above. Instead, there was solid earth with hanging moss, vines and countless roots holding it aloft. And mesmerizing patches of phosphorescent liken, casting a soft glow over the entire grotto. The hue of it, half-way between azure and emerald seemed to come down in waves, and motes of light descending like snowflakes.

The dwarf would have wondered what could even charge the phosphorescence of those liken patches if the answer wasn't so blatantly obvious. There, in the middle of the 60 foot-wide, 40 foot-tall hollow was a round pond. It was a crystal-clear thing, fed by the waterfall they'd just cleared, and a second one on the far side. From the pond's depths came golden light. The shine streamed upward through the glimmering surface, always shifting like an aurora. And in the middle of the pond was a perfectly round island, bearing an oak, twice as tall as the largest of the big folk.

The tree was healthy and strong. Even Nori, who knew nothing about plants, could tell it had been looked after by someone. A glance at the hobbit next to him confirmed his suspicions. Bilbo Baggins' eyes were slowly moving over the enchanted cave, analyzing everything. And his face held a contented lightness Nori had seldom seen on anyone, tempered with something like melancholy.

It made the dwarf suspicious, so he followed the hobbit's gaze to the side of the pond, the path of flat stones that led to the little island, then further. Nori squinted and saw that he hadn't imagined it. There, at the base of the oak was a small stone pedestal and a statue, flanked by two flower pots, each holding a tiger lily in full bloom. One near golden, one almost blood red.

The realization came out of his mouth before he could stop himself. "A shrine." He looked at Bilbo again. "This is a memorial…"

The hobbit nodded once, then noticed the question he hadn't fully stopped from showing in his gaze. "My mother."

Ah.

Well.

No wonder he was so protective of that special china. And the glory box. And the kitchen appliances. And Bag End in general. If she was a great enough person for him to go to the effort of creating something like _this_…

Definitely not a grocer.

Thankfully, the smaller figure resumed his walk, striding purposely down the path that led from behind the waterfall to the grass and flower-studded ground below. Nori followed silently, still looking around in honest awe. Being closer to the center, however, didn't cast any clarity upon the mystery of where on earth the light in the pond even came from. For all he knew, Bag End was doing this, somehow. The water from the waterfalls certainly didn't come from outside. The closest river hadn't shown signs of redirection, even partial, and there had been no evidence, anywhere, of an underground one.

In fact, everything looked like a closed, self-sufficient ecosystem. Was the pond water funneled through the earth somehow, and pulled up to cascade back in?

Bilbo's voice forced his mind back to his surroundings. "I'll just need a few minutes." Embarrassed at having lost sense of the world around him, Nori gave a grunt of acknowledgment. "Feel free to look around in the meantime."

He watched Bilbo easily step from one stone to another, his bare toes never touching the water. The Halfling did sprinkle some sort of powder though. Seeds or flour of some sort? It made colorful streaks come to the fore in the water around him. Acting on a hunch, the dwarf stepped closer to the edge of the pond, wincing when he couldn't quite avoid stepping on some of the yellow and purple flowers. At least the bumblebee survived his slow advance, though the black and gold-ringed insect did buzz around his face a couple of times to show its displeasure.

Looking ahead and seeing the intent look that Bilbo was sending him, Nori forced himself not to show hostility to the buzzing thing until it left him alone. The hobbit nodded at him in approval and resumed his walk, leaving him be. It made Nori feel somewhat less apprehensive of his inspection, so he looked into the pond and got his confirmation: it was full of fish. Exotic ones. The gold fish were acceptable enough, but there were at least five other species, some transparent, some colored with all shades of the rainbow, there was even a tiny turtle, of all things. And – Nori blinked in astonishment there – did that black fish have _whiskers_? So weird…

Not as strange as the light though. There was no source he could determine. There were no glowing rocks at the bottom of the pool, though there were plenty of algae and green underwater plants. There wasn't even gold dust missed with the sand. Yet light shone from the water regardless.

Beyond it, in front of the pedestal, Bilbo Baggins had knelt and was keeping still and silent, like nothing could disturb him. Nori didn't want to chance it tough, and he _could_ mind others' feelings from time to time, so he tried not to make any noise. Not that hard for one of his occupation.

Some minutes later, he returned to the path. The _cobblestone_ path, strangely enough. It looked like a road of yellow bricks. Odd tastes, but that was nothing new for hobbits. It did fit in well though. Everything was so peaceful here. Nori was no one's fool, he could tell when something was remarkable, and this place certainly qualified. It made him wonder what strange hallucinations Bilbo Baggins was suffering from, sharing such an amazing, mystical secret with _him_ of all people. Him, who probably had the most problems out of everyone in Thorin's Company of dwarves. For crying out loud, he couldn't even control his thieving. Half the time he didn't even remember stealing something when he found it in his pack.

He could almost feel his simple presence dirtying the wondrous place around him. It made him feel so morose that he heaved a sigh.

Which was when something splashed in, or _out of_, the pond, making him spin on his heels. There were still some drops in the air, and they fell, stirring ripples that lost themselves in the larger ones that came about as a result of the bird's emergence from the clear water. It was official, Nori was hallucinating too if he was seeing _birds_ coming out of _lakes_.

The avian was a tiny thing, smaller than even a wren. It breezed through the air on blurring wingbeats, shooting freely like a streak of bright scarlet, then stopped right in front of his face, having cleared the distance faster than an arrow could fly. Nori looked at it in wonder. He'd never seen its like before, and doubted anyone else had. Well, anyone other than the hobbit.

"Are you alright?"

Nori almost jumped out of his skin. As it was, he managed to only tense at the sound of the voice that came from right beside him. "Yeah, just… just a bit distracted."

The bird shot away, hovering in front of the hobbit, before landing on his nose and producing a string of high-pitched chirps that almost sounded like words, before taking to the air again, flying a loop around Nori one final time and going up… then down again. It splashed through the water surface and disappeared by the time the resulting ripples faded from sight themselves.

Bilbo hummed in amusement. "One day I'll know how he does that."

Nori barely had time to tilt his head at the use of "he" instead of "it," because Bilbo took off at a quick walk again, making for the other waterfall, not the one they'd come through. After a few seconds, Nori shook himself out of his trance and fell into step behind him. He really _should_ have at least considered the possibility of there being another access tunnel.

Bilbo, of course, guessed his ponderings. "I brought the seeds, saplings and critters, basically creating the ecosystem here." The hobbit strode up the slope on steady feet. "But I didn't actually do the digging. My uncles and aunts did the heavy lifting. Because of that, you'll be pleased to know that the rest of the way is going to be significantly less cramped." Bilbo looked at him over his shoulder. "The passage leads to the Great Smials of Tookland. That's where we're going."

Nori forced himself not to swallow. He was being taken to meet the hobbit _King_. Not-King, whatever. Once again, he found himself questioning Bilbo Baggins' sanity. How on earth was bringing _him_ along a good idea? Instead of, I don't know, Balin? Gloin? Hell, even _Bifur_ would probably do less damage, and he couldn't' even speak anything other than Khuzdul. Or was Nori being brought along just to be laughed at after the events of the previous night? Bilbo hadn't struck him as someone so petty but…

"Don't worry!" Bilbo said cheerfully. "My folks will love you. Just mind your feet when we get there. The fauntlings will probably try to steal your boots." At Nori's baffled stare, he clarified. "Footwear is odd to us, and children like to take things apart. That much I know holds true for all races. You won't have to guard yourself too much while we're walking there, but once we settle at the table, all bets are off. Faunts can sneak underneath chairs and tables like nobody's business. I'm doing my civic duty and warning you in advance."

Somehow, that didn't make him feel reassured at all.

It took another two hours to reach the end of the passage, but reach it they did. It finished in a heavy iron door much like the one that Bilbo had in his basement back in Bag End. The hobbit knocked twice, waited, then knocked four times, then waited, then another one time, after which he waited twice as long as the first time and struck the door with his palm.

Five seconds passed, then the thing sunk towards them. Nori made a step back, but it was unnecessary. The door slid to the side on rails the dwarf hadn't noticed before, though he really should have. Light poured in from the room beyond the tunnel exit. Well, from the lamp held there by whoever had opened the door anyway. It made him cringe and remember just how pitch black the whole passage had been. Odd how completely he'd gotten used to it.

"Well spank me rosy!" A male voice spoke from beyond the dull flame. "Bilbo Baggins! And a dwarf in tow, no less! I was right when I said you wouldn't be coming in alone!"

"Well if it isn't uncle Isembard," Bilbo said indulgently, stepping forward to embrace the significantly older man. Nori continued to be amazed by how freely Hobbits showed affection. "Who did you swindle this time? Uncle Isembold? Hildibrant? Aunt Donnamira?" Bilbo pulled out of the embrace and frowned. "You didn't start taking advantage of the younger generation, did you?"

"Don't you get cheeky with me, lad," The newly named Isembard shook his finger at his nephew. "Now, who's this with you?"

Bilbo grinned. "Nori, I give you my Uncle, Isembard Took. Uncle, may I introduce you to Nori, son of Bori." He waited until the two shook hands. "He's the intelligence officer accompanying Thorin Oakenshield, son of Thrain, son of Thror."

"Ah." The hobbit treated him to a long, piercing stare, then addressed Bilbo. "Contract?"

"Nope," Bilbo said brightly. "I have a good feeling about this one."

What the hell did that even mean?

"Do you now," the older hobbit looked at Nori again, even more keenly if it was even possible. "Well, it's not my decision to make. Come on, follow me!" The tunnel iron door seemed to open in the basement here, as it did in Bag End. A sensible enough architectural decision. "The table's already set. Mind your step, though. The little ones are prowling about as usual."

Nori wondered about that. The table was already set despite that it was midnight? There were hobbit children about at this hour? There was something periodic and consistent about Bilbo's arrival through that passage? And it was all routine enough that his relatives knew when someone should be waiting at the door? And for even hobbit children to catch on?

It must have been the whole "usher in the dawn" thing that signaled what Bilbo was going to do next. How he wished he'd been awake for it. Damned Bounders and their darts.

Looking around once they were in the corridors proper, he actually noticed the little ones. The darkness he and Bilbo had come through had helped sharpen his night vision, if nothing else. There were plenty of the tykes, all of them with curly heads of hair and big, curious eyes, peeking from around nooks and crannies. The thief was envious of Hobbits for a moment. The dwarves, in comparison, were a dying people, with the birth rate having long ago fallen below the yearly death toll. It was a large part of why so much hinged on this expedition.

But the three adults soon passed by what was clearly the tunnel leading to a dining hall, and Nori couldn't suppress an inquiring eyebrow.

Bilbo noticed and asked Isengrim the question Nori didn't voice. "I take it we're meeting uncle Isumbras before anything else?"

"He's waiting for you ahead. Ah, here we are. This is where I leave you. The wife's still up waiting for me. Good luck!" The lone dwarf watched him leave, feeling unexpectedly apprehensive because it was _him_ that the last words had been directed at.

The feeling lasted for all of two seconds.

Bilbo strode forward and shoved the circular door aside with such a total lack of decorum that Nori was left slack-jawed. "Hey Uncle! How's your pigheadedness doing these days?"

Nori, son of Bori, palmed his face and wished he was somewhere else.


End file.
